The Grail

as
Nordic Mystery

by
JULIUS EVOLA

TRADITION
2023
 JULIUS EVOLA

THE GRAIL AS A NORDIC

MYSTERY

INTELLECTUAL PREREQUISITES
OF A EUROPEAN UNITY

Twenty essays
1932 - 1952

1
 Content

1 Aryan Doctrine of Holy Struggle

2 The Grail as a Nordic Mystery

3 The weapons of the secret war

4 The sacred character of kingship

5 The hidden background of the Middle Ages

6 The swastika as a polar symbol

7 Feminism and heroic tradition

8 The double antlitz of nationalism

9 Overcoming activism

10 Overcoming the superman

11 Our anti-bourgeois front

12 On the spiritual preconditions of European unity

13 The red flag

14 On the Metaphysical Justification of the Race Idea

15 The age of the soldierly ethos

16 Empire and empire as elements of the new European order

17 Europe and the organic thought

18 Bearer of the Europe Myth

19 About the mystery of decay

20 The essence of initiatic knowledge

2
 The Study Group of the German-Italian Society is organizing in June in the rooms of the
German-Italian Society, Berlin W. 15, Uhlandstraße 171/172, (near Kurfürstendamm) a series
of lectures by Baron E v o l a , Rome.
1. Lecture: Monday, June 15, 1938, 8.3o p.m.
"Aryan Doctrine of Holy Struggle."
2. Lecture: Monday, June 20, 1938, 8.3o p.m.
"Grail as Nordic Mystery."
3. Lecture: Monday, June 27, 1938, 8:3o p.m.
"The Wafles of the Secret War."

Foreword
The purpose of the first lecture is to highlight those motifs of our ancient tradition that
lead to overcoming the opposition between the ascetic and the soldierly, the sacred
and the heroic, and to see in struggle and victory a positive path to inner perfection and
transcendent enhancement of the personality in full dependence on religious premises.
By the second lecture it is tried to remove above all the suspicion that this completion
by the heroic nevertheless flows into the mystical-formless and subjective-worldly.
Therefore, the Grail tradition is chosen as a further point of reference. In this tradition,
the first task enters into the closest connection with the idea of the empire and a
fighting order, and thus also with supra-individual and historical objectives: the hero
who has seen the Grail is cursed. Moreover, the Grail tradition was chosen as evidence
because the doctrine in question is expressed through elements that are of Nordic
origin and, for this purpose, point back to our common Roman-Germanic-Ghibelline
reality.
The two lectures emphasize that this is not a dead past, but rather a set of meanings
that could serve as a higher point of reference for the symbols and myths of today's
renewing movements.
The occult forces of the world overthrow strive to prevent this increase and
consequently to paralyze the spiritual power of such symbols and myths. With the third
lecture it is attempted to discover and uncover the main weapons of this secret war in
order to prevent in advance the action that our opponents direct against the resumption
of the main motives of the Aryan tradition of the deed, the Order and the Empire in
their highest and unadulterated form.
Baron E v o l a

3
1 Aryan Doctrine of Holy Struggle

Our culture is in a dichotomy in which the main root of its crisis emerges. On the one
hand, we have a culture without life, an ethics of uncertainty, a faith that basically
corresponds quite little to our way of life. On the other hand, we have a paroxystic
development of everything that is action, admittedly in a materialistic and almost
barbaric sense. It is hardly necessary to emphasize how, of these two terms, the second
proves to be the predominant one from day to day. Our civilization is essentially under
the sign of action. This above all because the tradition peculiar to the Occident is indeed
a tradition not of pure knowledge or of contemplation, but of action. But the action
known today is nothing but a depotentiated action, because secularized and deprived of
any transcendent point of relation. This situation springs from hidden causes, hardly
suspected by most. The thought is not daring that, in a certain sense, Christianity is one
of these causes. This faith, which is neither Aryan nor Roman, but of Semitic-Southern
origin, instead of signifying an addition to our ancient tradition, came to be seen as its
brusque interruption. Psychology teaches how inhibitions paralyze sublimation and
transform suppressed energies into germs of disease. Analogous is the diagnosis of the
process to which we owe the secularization and materialization of our tradition of the
deed. The Christian-dualistic conception of the spirit dissected our culture of deed. It
blocked the way upwards, the way to the absolute becoming of spirit. It erected an
invisible, yet stubborn barrier, so that in the race against it the forces conditioned by
the deed values finally found no other area accessible for their discharge than that of
the material. From this a pathological oversaturation of this area arose. The desecrated
action, deprived of any transfiguring power, had to degenerate with necessity to fever
and mania; it became doing for doing's sake or doing which is only bound to time-
conditioned realizations. From the Reformation and humanism on, this process could no
longer be stopped.
At this turning point of our history arises for the best the necessity of a revolt and the
return to the tradition of a again sacral and spiritual deed. Only in this way can the
Aryan Occident find its liberation and receive a soul truly appropriate to it. Only in this
way will our heroic vocation attain its highest development and will our aspirations for
reconstruction be able to find fulfillment.
Tonight we want to venture a short excursion into a world that is almost buried under
the positivist superstitions of modern civilization. Our aim is to bring back to light some
basic concepts of our ancient common tradition of action and its culmination in the
mystical doctrine of victory.
First and foremost, let us consider "games." For the moderns it will be surprising to
learn that the definition of fighting games transmitted by Livius is res divinae. So the
classical equivalent of what today is sport was something sacred, religious: it was a
"divine thing", res divinae. Moreover, in Greece and Rome, the games were dedicated
to symbolic figures of gods and heroes or to their deeds, which were also symbolic.
They had in the strictest sense the

4
Significance of a cult or rite. The fighting games, reports Dion Cassius, are held rite
facte, ritually. They therefore follow a strict and unchanging tradition. The slightest
violation entailed the necessity of repeating them, in order to avoid that divine forces
could turn inauspiciously against the city; moreover, Rome was convinced that the
neglect of the sacra certamina, the sacred combat games, would provoke a grave
danger. In moments of public misfortune or political danger, the games were
performed almost in the sense of an incantation rite.
The leaders of the Roman games were originally always strict priestly figures. No
profane displays were tolerated in the circus, but they took place under the sign of the
altars and temples dedicated to the great Aryan gods. The solemn procession with
which the games were introduced was similar to the procession of the triumphators
themselves. The symbols of the supreme Capitoline gods were carried into the circus, as
it were to symbolize their invisible presence, which moreover found its mystical
expression also by the presence of empty chairs. The victorious military leaders, for
their part, went from the Capitol to the circus to celebrate the games. Thus, the games
prove to be closely related to the mystical and sacred, as well as to the heroic and
triumphant element.
Ancient man experienced secret and divine forces behind the physical world, behind
human thoughts and instincts, behind collectivities and great historical destinies. The
rite was not for him an empty and formalistic ceremony. The rite was for the tradition-
bound man an objective spiritual technique, effective to act on these forces, to unleash
them, to subdue them or to guide them in certain directions. This background is not to
be addressed as superstition, but it is conditioned by a transcendental and super-
religious realism. From this background the secret meaning also of the fighting games
stands out tangibly.
The fighting games were in their deeper meaning a rite of ancient heroic character.
They were a method to unleash divine powers by means of a certain action or to renew
in the collective consciousness the presence and effectiveness of divine powers. It is not
surprising, then, that mystical numbers and symbols dominate even the architectural
structure of circuses and racetracks in such a way that their tangible materiality is
adapted to superordinate meanings. Deep down, at the altar dedicated to the deity
Consus, a subterranean entity full of greedy expectation of the blood spilled at the
fighting games, there was a kind of breakthrough point of subterranean powers. Above,
on the other hand, the statues crowned by goddesses of victory and Olympian deities,
and in their midst the symbols of the solar flame, embodied the opposite principle, the
truly divine power. Thus, a physical matter - be it even unconsciously - was elevated to a
symbolic and supernatural level. The circus was thus transformed into a fateful center,
so to speak - Tertullian says impressively: into a council of gods. Analogies created
mysterious connections. The victor could thus appear clothed with divine character, if
not downright as the momentary incarnation of a hero or a god. If we pass from the
Aryan-Roman traditions to the Hellenic ones, we only want to recall that in Olympia the
Olympic Games were considered to be founded by Heracles, in memory of a
metaphysical struggle, of battle and victory

5
of the Olympic powers over the Titanic ones. At the moment of triumph, the victor was
considered a revelation of the Olympian god, of Zeus himself.
Thus we have approached the leading point of our considerations. In the ancient Aryan
traditions, the heroic intoxication and victory appeared as a path to inner exaltation,
analogous to that taught by the classical mysteries, according to which, in the initiated,
death is transformed into resurrection. In this sense, the games, far from being an
expression of superstition, could solemnly recall the deeds of gods and demigods: the
ancient funerary art, accordingly, often used as material the figures of Olympic victors
and triumphant warriors to express the confidence of the deceased in a perfect and
indestructible life beyond. On this basis, the already indicated conception of the fighting
games as a heroic rite, as a method of awakening and renewing superhuman powers,
which were perceived by the communities of the people as decisive for their destinies
and greatness, also becomes understandable. In Rome, a whole series of games had
precisely the purpose of renewing the Victoria of Caesar, who was conceived as an
entity endowed with independent and indestructible life.
Let us now proceed to a second and higher manifestation of the spiritual tradition, as
far as it has relation to the action. We have to speak shortly of the war as a "holy war".
It is difficult to deny a metaphysical justification and transcendent intention to the
bloody undertakings and conquests of all ancient-Aryan peoples. In the tradition-based
worldview, every reality becomes a symbol. This also applies to war. On this basis, war
and "God's way" could not infrequently merge into one and the same thing.
Everyone is familiar with the characteristic testimonies that the Nordic-Germanic
tradition offers us in this regard. As is generally known, Valhalla is the seat of heavenly
immortality, reserved for the "freemen" of divine descent and for the heroes fallen on
the battlefield. The lord of this site, Odhin-Wotan, is presented to us in the Ynglinga
saga as the one who, with his symbolic sacrifice at the world tree Yggdrasil, has shown
the heroes the way that leads up to the divine abode where eternal life blooms, as on a
luminous mountaintop that shines above the clouds. According to this tradition, no
sacrifice or cult is more pleasing to the supreme God, none bears richer supramundane
fruits than that sacrifice which the hero makes by falling fighting on the battlefield.
But even more: through the heroes, who offer a falling sacrifice to Odhin, the crowd of
those is strengthened, whose this god needs for the last fight against Ragna-rökkr, i.e.
against the doom of the darkening of the divine, which lies threatening over the world
since distant times. In the Edda it is said: "However great the number of the heroes
gathered in Valhalla, there will never be enough of them when the wolf will break forth.
The wolf is here the symbol of dark and wild powers, which the culture of the Aesir had
originally succeeded in taming and subduing.
Analogous is the Iranian-Aryan doctrine of Mithras, the "warrior without sleep", who
fights at the head of the fravashi, i.e. the transcendental parts of his faithful, against the
enemies of the Aryan faith. We will have to go into more detail about the fravashi in a
moment, who basically correspond to the Valkyries of the Nordic tradition. First,
however, we would like to explain the general concept of the "holy fight" by means of
three

6
The first step is to clarify the relationship between the two cultures through further
evidence, which we take from Islamic tradition, medieval crusader tradition, and Indo-
Aryan tradition.
As far as the Islamic tradition is concerned, it must be emphasized immediately that the
idea of holy war is originally Persian, that is, of Aryan origin, and was adopted only later
by the Arab tribes. This being said, the Islamic tradition distinguishes two holy wars:
one is the Great Holy War, and the other is the Lesser Holy War. This distinction stems
from a saying of the Prophet, who, on returning from a warlike venture, said: "From the
minor we have returned to the major holy war." The great holy war belongs to the
spiritual order. The minor Holy War, on the other hand, is the material struggle, the
physical war fought in the external world against an enemy people, especially against
the infidels, the unrighteous or the barbarians. The great Holy War is the struggle of
man against the enemies he carries within himself. More precisely, it is the struggle of
the supernatural element in man against all that is libidinal, passionate, in bondage to
the forces of nature. In this sense, in a text of Aryan warrior wisdom, in the Bhagavad-
Gitâ, it is said: "By the realization of that which is beyond the mind, affirm yourself by
yourself and kill the enemy in the form of the desire which is difficult to defeat." The
precondition for the inner work of liberation is that such an enemy, the "unbeliever"
and the "barbarian" in us, is annihilated.
Within the framework of a heroic tradition, however, the small holy war is understood
only as an external struggle, only as a path through whose mediation this very great
holy war is to be realized. For this reason, "holy war" and "way of God," jihad, often
appear as synonyms in Islam. Thus we read in the Koran: "Those who sacrifice earthly
life for the future fight in the way of God - i.e. in the holy war: for to him who fights in
the way of God and is killed, or to him who is victorious, we will pay a high price." And
further, "And those who are killed in God's way - never does he guide their works astray.
He will guide them and give peace to their hearts. And He will bring them into Paradise,
which He has made them to know." Here is alluded to the physical death in war, to
which the so-called Mors Triumphalis, the "victorious death", of the classical traditions
corresponds exactly. But the same doctrine can also be understood in a symbolic sense.
Whoever has known how to experience a "great holy war" in a small war has generated
a force within himself that enables him to conquer the crisis of death. But even without
having been physically killed, one can experience death, one can have triumphed and
realized a "survival". "Paradise", "Heavenly Kingdom" and similar designations are in
reality nothing else than symbolizations of transcendental states of consciousness on a
higher level than life and death.
These considerations may also be considered as a premise to find the same meaning
under the outer Christian garment, which the heroic Nordic-Occidental tradition was
forced to throw over in the Crusades, in order to be able to appear outwardly.
Much more than one is generally inclined to believe, in the Crusade ideology the
liberation of the Temple, the conquest of the Holy Land had points of contact with the
Nordic-Aryan tradition, which refers to the mystical Asgard, to the distant land of the
Aesir and heroes, where death does not reign, and where the inhabitants enjoy an
immortal life and a supernatural peace. The Holy War

7
appeared to be a thoroughly spiritual war, so that it could literally be compared by the
preachers to a "purification, as it were the fire of the Purgatory even before death. -
"What glory for you to come out of battle crowned with nothing but laurels. But how
much greater the glory of winning an immortal crown on the battlefield," - so spoke to
the Templars a Bernard of Clairvaux. The "absolute glory" - the same that was attributed
by theology to the Lord in heavenly heights: "Gloria in excelsis Deo" - was also promised
to the crusader. On this basis, Jerusalem, the dreamed goal of the "little Holy War",
presented itself in a double aspect, as an earthly city and as a heavenly city, and the
Crusade as a prelude to a true achievement leading to immortality.
The military vicissitudes of the Crusades at first caused surprise and confusion. But then
they had only the effect of purifying the idea of war from any residue of materiality. The
unfortunate course of a crusade was compared to virtue pursued by misfortune, the
value of which can be judged and rewarded only in relation to a non-earthly life. Thus, a
point of view was taken that was above victory as well as defeat, and that concentrated
every value judgment on the ritual side of the deed. The true focus was thus on holy
war, regardless of its visible results, as a means of achieving immortalizing glory from
the active sacrifice of the human element. The dualism of victory and virtue here is
naturally influenced by the general dualism inherent in the Christian faith. Nevertheless,
in this attitude a higher point of view comes to the fore again, which has its root and its
logical place not in Christianity, but in the heroic reality of Aryan antiquity.
To this reality belongs the tradition as it appears in the Indo-Aryan text of the
Bhagavad-Gitâ.
The same doctrine acquires here a metaphysical basis. The pity that prevents the warrior
Arjuna from going into the field against the enemy is called by the god: "cowardice,
unworthy of a noble and distant from heaven". The promise is: "Killed - you will have
paradise, victorious - you will have the earth. Therefore, rise resolutely to the battle." The
inner orientation capable of transforming the small war into the great Holy War, into death
and triumphant resurrection, is clearly paraphrased: "By consecrating every action to me,"
says the God, "with the spirit dwelling in the highest state of I, far from any thought of
possession, freed from the fever of the spirit, fight!" In equally clear terms it says of the
purity of this action: it must be willed for its own sake, beyond any empirical purpose, any
passion, any human impulse. "By equating pleasure and suffering, advantage and loss,
victory and defeat in value, arm yourself for the battle: thus you will not incur any stain."
As a further metaphysical justification the God explains the difference between that
what is absolute spirituality and as such indestructible - and that what as physical and
human element has only illusory existence. With the consciousness of the metaphysical
unreality of what one can lose as transient life and mortal body, or by which one can
cause the loss in others, is connected the knowledge of that manifestation of the divine,
according to which it is a power that carries away with itself in irresistible absoluteness.
Facing the greatness of this power

8
every conditioned form of existence appears as negation. Therefore, this power reaches
terrible revelation wherever this negation is actively negated, that is, where in the
onslaught every limited Dasein is torn away or destroyed. Individuals are subject to
becoming, to transformation, to disappearance, precisely because there blazes within
them a power that transcends them, a power that wants infinitely more than what they
can ever want. On this basis, it is possible to circumscribe more precisely the energy
that is capable of bringing about the heroic transformation. Values are transformed into
their opposite: death becomes assertion of life. The sacred warrior appears as a
manifestation of the divine, as a metaphysical force of destruction of the finite. He
actively draws this force to himself, transfiguring and liberating himself in it by breaking
the bonds of the human. The suggestive utterances of another text, but belonging to
the same tradition, are: "Life like a bow; the soul like an arrow; as the target to be
pierced - the absolute spirit. To connect with this spirit as the arrow that has been
hurried off bores into its target." In short, therein consists the metaphysical justification
of war, the transformation of the small war into the great Holy War, as it was familiar to
the heroic Indo-Aryan world.
Thus all conditions are given to advance also to the understanding of the most inward
content, which underlies a group of classical and Nordic traditions, culminating in the
mystical doctrine of victory. As a starting point we may use the observation that in
classical and Indo-European antiquity in general several ideas appear in a peculiar
mixture: the idea of the soul as a demon and "double"; the idea of a goddess of death;
finally the idea of a goddess of victory. In other words, it is the idea of a single being
who is at the same time goddess of battle and victory, as well as embodying the
transcendental element of the soul.
Let's try to reach a spiritual understanding of these different elements. First of all it is
necessary to examine the meaning of the "demon" (daimon in the Greek sense), the
"genius" or "double", and in which relation to the human soul these beings were
thought. The key to this is already given in our interpretation of that deep-lying force,
towards which the human existence is nothing but mere negation. It is only to be added
that this force from one side of its unfolding was conceived as formative energy. The
demon is similar to the "lares" of which Macrobius says: "They are the gods who keep
us alive. They nourish our bodies and regulate our souls." Ancient man saw in the
demon or double a deep-seated power which secretly directs all those bodily and
psychic processes to which ordinary consciousness does not reach, but which
nevertheless condition our existence and destiny. It may be said that between the
double and the ordinary consciousness there is a relation like that between the
individuating and the individuated principle. The first, according to the teaching of the
ancients, is a supra-individual force, therefore superior to birth and death. The second
principle is subject to dissolution in the ordinary way. It is noteworthy that in the Nordic
tradition the concept of the Valkyrie merges with that of the Fylgja, that is, with a
spiritual entity working in man, to whose power his destiny is entrusted. The same
applies to the frawashi of the Iranian-Aryan tradition. The frawashi is the innermost
power of every being, is that which sustains it and causes it to be born and to exist.

9
At the same time, the frawashi, like the Valkyries, are terrible war goddesses who
bestow good fortune and victory. Let us dwell for a moment on this equation.
It is known that the Indo-European antiquity possessed a distinctly aristocratic
conception of immortality. Not all escape the self-dissolution, the extinguished illusory
existence in Hades and Niflheim. Immortality is a prerogative of a few, and essentially a
heroic prerogative. An afterlife not as a shadow but as a demigod is granted only to
those whom a special spiritual deed has elevated from one nature to the other. In the
technical sense, such a spiritual act consisted, according to the ancient Aryan traditions,
in a transformation of the sense of self from the ordinary human consciousness, limited
and individuated, to a deep, supra-individual, individuating power which stands beyond
life and death, and to which we have said that the concept of the "demon" corresponds.
But the demon transcends each of the finite forms in which it manifests itself.
Therefore, the brusque transition from the ordinary ego state to the "demonic" state
has the meaning of a destructive crisis: like a lightning strike due to a potential that is
stretched too high. Such destruction and crisis actually takes place through death. Let
us now suppose that under quite exceptional circumstances the demon can, so to
speak, burst into us and thus make us feel its destructive transcendence; then one
would have a kind of active experience of death, and it now becomes clear why the
figure of the double or demon could merge with the deity of death in ancient
conceptions. In the Nordic tradition, the warrior sees his Valkyrie precisely at the
moment of death or the danger of death.
Let us go further. If in religious asceticism mortification, renunciation of one's own ego,
devotion to God are the preferred means with the help of which one undertakes to
successfully overcome the crisis just indicated, then in the framework of a heroic
tradition, on the other hand, the way to this goal is the active upsurge, the unleashing of
the gate element. As a lower manifestation of this element, we thus see, for example,
dance related as a sacred method to evoke and employ deeper forces through mental
ecstasy. Into the life of the individual unleashed to Dionysian rhythm another life sank
in, as it were as the emergence of its abysmal root. Furies, Erinyes and other wild
spiritual natures are the ancient symbolic visualizations of this force. They therefore
correspond to a manifestation of the demon, according to its terrible and active
transcendence. On a higher level are just the sacral fighting games. Still higher is the
war. On the clairvoyant summit of danger and the heroic battle swing the possibility of
such an experience was recognized. Already the expression "ludere" - to play, to fight -
contains the idea of solving. This is an allusion to the power inherent in combat to
release deeper hidden forces from individual limitation and let them emerge freely.
From this arises the reason for the second equation. The demon and the goddess of
death are not only identical with the furies, erinyes and other unleashed Dionysian
entities, they are equivalent to the storm maidens of the battles. The frawashi are called
"the terrible ones, the all-powerful ones," "the ones who attack in the storm and give
victory to the one who invokes them."
The same entity finally takes the form of the goddess of victory. This last
metamorphosis marks the happy completion of the described inner

10
Experiences. Just as the demon or doppelganger signifies a deeper power in their
latency to ordinary consciousness, just as the Furies and Erinyes reflect a particular
manifestation of demonic unleashings and outbursts
- likewise, the goddess of victory is the expression of triumph over this power. She
signifies the victorious upsurge to a state beyond the danger of ecstasies and
subpersonal forms of decomposition, a danger that always lurks behind the frenetic
moment of Dionysian action. It means the upswing to a spiritual state that makes free,
immortal, inwardly indestructible.
But where the deeds of the spirit express themselves by deeds and real facts, there it
results that really the physical corresponds to the metaphysical, the visible to the
invisible. Such spiritual deeds then show themselves to us as the secret soul of warlike
undertakings, the crowning of which is the real and actual victory. The material military
victory then becomes a mere correspondence for a spiritual fact which has conditioned
the victory where the outer and the inner are connected. The victory thus appears as a
tangible sign of an initiation and mystical rebirth that took place in the same point. The
furies and death, which the warrior has withstood materially on the battlefield, meet
him also inwardly, in the spiritual, in the form of a perilous upheaval of the deepest
reasons of his being. By triumphing over these, the victory is his. And the glory that then
surrounds him is not an empty sound, but a real power, a metaphysical revelation, a
shining forth of the superworld.
This explains why, in ancient traditions, every victory acquired a sacred meaning. Thus,
the emperor, acclaimed on the battlefields, offered the experience of the brusque
presence of a mystical power that transformed him. Thus, at last, the deep, by no
means theoretical sense of a supernatural character breaking through in the glory and
divinity of the victors can be grasped. From Nike, the goddess of victory, the Doric hero
Heracles receives the wreath that makes him partake of Olympic immortality. If the
souls of the heroes are led to the seat of immortality by the valkyries - the valkyries
were understood at the same time as those forces which scare the enemy with panic -
they are also the ones who determine the final victory. Mystical theology teaches that
in glory the beatific spiritual vision takes place, and Christian iconography surrounds the
heads of saints and martyrs with the aureole of glory. All this signifies a heritage - albeit
a vestigial one - of our highest heroic tradition. The Iranian-Aryan tradition, in fact,
already knew the glory understood as heavenly fire, which descends on kings and
leaders, makes them immortal and bears witness to them in victory. And the ancient
royal crown of rays symbolized precisely the glory as a sunlike and heavenly mystical
fire. If one examines the deepest meaning of the conception of the test of arms,
peculiar to chivalry, as a judgment of God, one discovers the same conception: victory
synonymous with a supernatural sign of truth and justice. By virtue of the same
thought, in Rome the ceremony of triumph had a far more sacred than military
character. The triumphator went to the temple of the luminous Capitoline sky-god to
place in his hands the laurel of victory, expressing that the true creator of victory was
not so much the human and mortal part of the victor as a transcendent, supra-personal
element that conformed him in the likeness of that God. For this reason, in the
ceremony of triumph, the victor clothed himself with all the emblems and symbols
proper to the Deity. Light,

11
sunny splendor, glory, victory, divine kingship are ideas that appear in the classical and
Indo-European world in closest connection. In this sense, the mystical doctrine of
victory is for us a luminous culmination of our common deed tradition.
This tradition still speaks to us audibly today. It confronts us with the alternative: loyalty
or betrayal. We can only repeat here the words we placed at the entrance of this
excursion into the old heroic world: Today we are faced with the imperious need to
overcome - whether it be a tired, anemic spirituality formed of pious sentiment or
abstract speculation - or whether it be the materialistic degeneration of the act. Even if
the external and time-conditioned manifestations of the old-Aryan tradition of deeds
belong to the past, the spirit inherent in it is still alive today and may claim a supreme
right over the old and newly created idols.
Above all: it must return to new life the ideal of a force which is at the same time spirit;
of a victory which is at the same time transfiguration and enlightening glory. May a
barbaric civilization continue to intoxicate itself with the animal-activist and mechanical
ideal of life - all this does not interest us, does not concern us.
War: let us say it with a loud voice: war should not be for us a cruel slaughter, nor a sad
necessity, but the way to a higher way of life and the test of the divine mission of a
people.
For the ancient Aryan, by the way, every war was the parable of an eternal struggle
between metaphysical powers: on one side there was brute force, the Titanic-Tellurian,
the barbaric in the classical sense, the feminine-demonic. We have already had the
opportunity to emphasize that our culture today is experiencing years of decision, the
ultimate meaning of which is in the closest connection with such a realization. After the
collapse of our old Europe, after the rationalistic and individualistic devastations and all
that the revolt of the masses and the demoniac of materialized collectivism have
brought about in every field up to the final point of Bolshevism, dark forces are today
preparing for the final attack. To these forces correspond most exactly the ideas of the
ancient Aryans concerning the subterranean forces, opposite to which, in the
symbolism of the sacred struggle, stood the solar principle of order with its militia. This
realization and this metaphysical dualism shall be called to new life today and give the
final meaning to our heroic vocation. A new front shall be formed and gather all those
who still stand firm and are bearers of tradition. From distant times sounds the
suggestive formula: "Life - like a bow; the soul - like an arrow; the target to be hit - the
highest spirit." Let this be the watchword of the new Holy War, the principle of an
irresistible, heroic and, as it were, metaphysical momentum. It is not a paradox:
perhaps never have our ancient myths of the final decision and the last battle, of the
newly awakening host of heroes in the struggle against the encroaching demon of the
mass world, the sunny tradition of the deed and the mysticism of victory been so
intensely topical as they will be in the times to come, in the times that will shape the
entire European-Western destiny.

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2 The Grail as a Nordic Mystery

"Evola wanted to make three things clear above all with his Grail book: 1. that the
Grail was not a Christian but a hyperboreal mystery, 2. that it was an initiatic
mystery, and 3. that the Grail had been the symbolic expression of the hope and
will of a certain leadership class in the Middle Ages (precisely Ghibellineism),
which wanted to reorganize and unite the entire Occident of that time in a 'sacred'
realm, i.e., one based on transcendent, spiritual foundations."
Dr. H.T. Hansen on "The Mystery of the Grail

In one form or another, in all the great traditions of antiquity, and especially in the Indo-
European ones, there recurs again and again the idea of a mighty world ruler; of an
invisible empire surpassing all visible kingship; of a place which in a higher sense has the
significance of a pole, an axis, an immutable center, and which is pictured as a solid land
in the middle of the ocean of life, as a sacred, inviolable region, as a land of light or
"sun-land."
Metaphysical meanings, symbols and dark memories are spun into a single fabric. The
idea of the Olympic kingship and the heavenly mission rises up. The tradition-bound
principle reads: "He who rules by virtue of (heavenly) virtue resembles the pole star.
Immovable, he dwells in his place, while everything else revolves around him."
The thought of the world king conceived as Chakrawartî rises; the Chakrawartî, king of
kings, immovably turns the wheel of the empire. Invisible like that of the wind, his
action resembles the destiny of the forces of nature. In a thousand forms and in the
closest connection with the idea of a Nordic-Hyperborean land, the symbolism and
analogy of the seat of the center, the seat of permanence breaks through: the
mountain height, the sun castle, the preserved land, the white island, or the island of
splendor, the hero's court. "Neither by land nor by sea can the sacred land be reached,"
Hellenic tradition reports. "Only the flight of the spirit leads there," murmurs the Far
Eastern tradition. Other texts speak of the mysterious magnetic mountain, into which
the ones reached to the spiritual enlightenment are raptured. Other writings, in turn,
tell of the Land of the Sun, from which symbolic figures emerge who are to assume
kingship in the midst of masterless races. This is also the island of Avallon, i.e. the island
of Apollo, the sun god called Aballun by the Celts. Legendary divine races like the
Tuatha dé Danann, who came from Avallon, were also said to come from "heaven". The
Tuatha took with them from Avallon certain mystical objects: a stone denoting the
legitimate kings, a lance, a sword, finally a vessel that "gives inexhaustible food", i.e. the
everlasting nourishment, the "gift of life". These are the objects of the later Grail
legend.
From the heights of primeval times, this body of thought descends to the Middle Ages,
and in this period it assumes peculiar manifestations. These are, among others, the

13
Ideas of the kingdom of the priest-king John and the king Arthur. "Priest-King John" is
not a name, but a title. It is spoken of a dynasty of the "priest-kings John", as of that
which, like the Davidic dynasty, embodies the royal and at the same time the spiritual
dignity. The kingdom of John often gets the features of the "original place" - the "earthly
paradise". There grows the tree: a tree that in the variants of the legend sometimes
comes to the fore as a tree of life, but sometimes also as a tree of victory and world
domination. The Stone of Light is also found there: a stone that resurrects the imperial
beast, the eagle. John holds the people of Gog and Magog - the elemental powers, the
demon of the collective - under his spell. The legends tell of symbolic journeys that the
greatest rulers in the history of the world would have made to the land of John the
priest-king, or to lands of equal significance, to seek there a kind of supernatural
consecration for their office and power. John, for his part, would have sent emperors
such as Frederick II, for example, symbolic gifts containing the meaning of a heavenly
commission.
One of the heroes who reach the kingdom of John is Ogier the Dane. However, from the
Ogiersage, that kingdom is equated with Avallon, i.e. with the Hyperborean island, the
Uranian sun land, the Aryan white island. After Avallon, King Arthur retreats. A tragedy,
described by the texts in different ways, forces him to seek refuge there. Arthur's
retreat has only the meaning of the latent of a principle. Arthur never died according to
the legend. He still lives in Avallon. He will reveal himself again. In his figure only a new
manifestation of the polar ruler, of the world king thought is to be seen. The historical is
carried along and shaped by the superhistorical.
Already the old etymology traces back the name Arthur to arthos, i.e. bear, which again
points us back to the "center thought" by the astronomical symbolism of the polar star.
The symbolism of the knightly round table and its head Arthur is a solar and polar one. It
is reported that Arthur's castle is like Mitgard, the light abode of the Norse Aesir, - built
"in the center of the world" (in medio mundi constructum). In some texts this castle is
described as revolving: it revolves around itself, just as on the "white island", çveta-dîpa,
of the Indo-Europeans of India in the Hyperborean land, whose god is the sunlike
Vishnu, the swastika revolves, just as the Celtic-Nordic "glass island" - an image of
Avallon - revolves; just as the fateful wheel of Chakravarti, the Aryan king of the world,
revolves. The supernatural traits of the Aryan World King are embodied, as it were, in
Myrddhin, or Merlin, an advisor inseparable from Arthur, who is essentially not another
being distinct from him, but roughly like a complementary part of him. The Arthurian
knighthood will seek the Grail. It, which gathers its members from all countries, has the
slogan: "He who is leader shall be bridge for us". According to the ancient etymology,
"Pontifex" meant the bridge builder, the one who makes the connection between the
two shores, the two worlds.
In addition, there are dark historical memories and geographical transmissions of
temporal meanings. The island country lying at the outermost border of the "world",
which is spoken of in many traditions, points in fact only to the primeval center in the
primeval distance of the time. The sun land is Thule for the Greeks. Thule is equivalent
to the Airyanem-Waêjô, the land of the extreme north of the Aryan

14
Persian. Airyanem-Waêjô is the "seed" of the Aryan-Iranian primal race, in which the
conception of the king of kings, the bearer of the law from the God of light will
reappear. Airyanem-Waêjô knew the kingdom of the sunny Yima, the golden age. But
Hesiod remembers, "When that age (the golden one) came to an end, those divine men
continued to exist and became in invisible form the guardians of men." This because
the "sense" of history, its direction, is decay: the golden age was replaced by the silver
age - that of the "mother", after that the bronze age - that of the Titans, at last the iron
"dark" age; kali-yuga, time of the wolf, twilight of the gods. Why? Many myths seem to
want to establish a connection between "fall" and hubris, i.e. Promethean usurpation,
titanic revolt. Again, Hesiod remembers: Zeus, the Olympian principle, creates a race of
heroes who are more than Titans and can regain a godlike life. Through them the
sunlike primordial spirituality, the golden age, can be restored. A symbol: the Doric-
Aryan Heracles, ally of the Olympians, enemy of the Titans and Giants.
The doctrine of the supreme center and the world ages is closely related to the doctrine
of cyclic laws and manifestations. Without this reference many myths and memories
would remain in the state of unstructured and incomprehensible fragments. "This
happened once - this will happen again", teaches the tradition. And also, "Every time
the spirit perishes and nefariousness rises, I reveal myself: for the protection of the
righteous, for the destruction of the wicked, for the firm restoration of the law, I assume
a body from age to age." In all traditions, in various forms, more or less accomplished,
there is always to be found the doctrine of the cyclical appearance of a single principle,
which continues in an unrevealed state in the intervening periods. Belief in Messiah,
Last Judgment, milenarium regnum (Millennial Kingdom), etc. - all these are only
fragmentary reproductions of this knowledge, distorted by an unbridled religious
imagination, a knowledge which, however, also underlies those unclear ideas which
have as their object a ruler who has never died, who withdraws into an inaccessible
abode and who will one day reveal himself again for the last battle, a "sleeping"
emperor who will awaken; a wounded prince who awaits the one who will heal him and
lead his empire to new prosperity. These familiar motifs from the saga of the emperor
take us very far back in time. The Urarian myth of the Kalki avatar already embodies the
same meanings in meaningful connection with the other symbols already indicated. The
Kalki avatar is "born" in Shamballa - one of the designations of the Urnordic center. The
teaching is transmitted to him by Parashu-Râma, the "never died" bearer of the
tradition of the divine heroes, the destroyer of the rebellious, desecrated warrior caste.
The Kalki avatar fights against the "dark age" and essentially with its demon leaders
Koka and Vikoka, which even etymologically correspond to Gog and Magog, the
subterranean forces ruled by the priest-king John and unleashed in the dark age, against
which also the Ghibelline awakening emperor will have to fight.

The Grail legend can be traced back to this world of thought and can only be
understood historically as well as supra-historically on the basis of these tradition-
bound teachings and their overarching symbolism. Whoever connects the Grail legend
in terms of content with this

15
If one believes to exhaust the Grail legend by defining it as a Christian legend, as a
pagan-Celtic folklore or as a poetic invention of a sublimated chivalry, one will only
receive the external, insignificant and unessential from this literature. Equally
misleading would be any attempt to make the Grail saga dependent on a particular
"folk spirit." We can, after all, declare: The Grail is a Nordic mystery. But then we should
understand by "Nordic" something much deeper and more comprehensive than just
German or Indo-European and refer to the Hyperborean tradition, which is ultimately
the same as the original tradition itself. Indeed, all the main motifs of the cycle in
question can be traced back to this tradition.
Extremely significant in this regard is already the indication of Perceval le Gallois that
the writings about the history of the Grail were found on the island of Avallon, where
"the Arthurian tomb lies". And not only that: other texts call the land where Joseph of
Arimathia would have originally taken the Grail, or where certain mysterious ancestors
of Joseph lived, the White Island, "isle blanche" and Avallon Island, "Insula Avallonis".
They are again the designations of the Nordic primitive center. If England was described
as a kind of land of the Grail and as a region in which the Grail adventures would have
mainly taken place, much already leads to the suspicion that it is essentially a symbolic
land. England was also called "Albion" and "white island", Albania a part of it, Avallon
the locality Glastonbury. The old Celtic-British mythology, in fact, seems to have
transferred to England, or to a part of England, certain memories and meanings
essentially related to the Nordic primordial center, to Thule, the Land of the Sun. The
true "land" of the Grail is this. Thus it happens that the Grail kingdom enters into the
closest connection with the symbolic Arthurian kingdom, the devastated kingdom, "la
terre gaste" and the kingdom whose ruler is wounded, lethargic or decayed. A rocky
island, a glass island, the turning island, the Isle of the Tournance, a land surrounded by
waters, an inaccessible place, a mountain height, a sun castle, a wild mountain and a
mountain of salvation (Montsalvatsche and Mons Salvationis), an invisible, inaccessible
castle, reachable only by the called, and even by them only at the risk of their lives, and
so on: These are the main stages of all the adventures of the Grail heroes; they are
nothing but as many manifestations of the symbolic abode of the World King. The
memory of the primordial center returns: "Eden" is called the Grail land by one text.
The Lohengrin cycle and the Saxon Chronicle of Halberstadt report: "Arthur sits with his
knights in the Grail, which was then the Earthly Paradise (i.e. the Urland) and has now
become a place of sin".
In the literature of chivalry, the Grail is actually a supernatural object, which has the
following main characteristics: it nourishes - (gives life); it shines (leads to spiritual
enlightenment); it makes invincible. Of its other aspects, two in particular should be
emphasized here:
Firstly, the Grail is a celestial stone, which not only, like the stone taken by the Tuatha
from Avallon, appoints the kings, but also designates the rulers who have to become
"priest-king John" (see "Titurel").
Secondly, the Grail is the stone that sprang from the crown of Lucifer at the moment of
his defeat (see "Wartburg War"). As such, the Grail symbolizes a power that Lucifer lost
in the fall, and it also retains in the other texts the features of a

16
"Mysterium tremendum. Like a terrible power, the Grail kills, crushes or blinds any
knight who approaches it too closely without being called or worthy of it. This aspect of
the Grail is related to the so-called trial of the "perilous seat". In the Arthurian round
someone is now missing. A seat is empty, which ultimately belongs to the highest head
of the order. Whoever occupies it without being the expected hero will be struck by
lightning or swallowed by the earth. The Grail can only be attained through struggle, "it
must be won," says Wolfram von Eschenbach.
The mystery of the Grail is divided into two motifs: one refers to a symbolic realm,
appearing as the image of the supreme center, which is to be restored. The Grail is no
longer present in it or has lost its virtue. The king of the Grail is infirm, wounded, senile,
or caught by an evil spell that seems to keep him alive while he has been dead for
centuries (Henry of the Turlin).
The other motive consists in the existence of a hero who, by being able to fight for the
Grail, should feel obliged to such restoration; otherwise he fails in his task and his
heroic power is cursed (Wolfram). He is supposed to be able to forge a broken sword
back together. He is supposed to be the "avenger." He is supposed to "ask the
question."
What kind of task is this? It seems to be the same that Hesiod has assigned to the
heroes: that generation which, born in the ages of decay, has to restore the primeval
age. As the Hesiodic hero is to overcome and conquer the Titanic, so the Grail hero is to
overcome the Luciferic danger. It is not enough that the Grail knight proves himself in
all kinds of natural and supernatural adventures as a "heart of steel" and the "best and
bravest knight in the world": he should also be free from arrogance and attain wisdom
(Wolfram, Gautier). If Lucifer has lost the Grail, some texts (Grand St. Graal, Gibert de
Mostreuil, Morte Darthur) attribute without further ado to Lucifer the demonic force
that works against the Grail knights in various trials. Not only that, but in each case the
Grail King is rendered powerless by suffering from a burning, poisoned wound
contracted in the service of Orgeluse, it being readily apparent that Orgeluse is nothing
other than a female personification of the principle of pride, orgueil in French.
However, in the castle of the same Orgeluse, other Grail knights, such as Gawan, are put
to the highest test. However, they do not succumb. They win. They marry or "possess"
orgueil. The purpose of these tests is to realize a pure power, a spiritual manhood, to
raise the heroic quality to an Olympian, royal, solar level, to a level detached from any
power of chaos. "The earthly chivalry shall become a heavenly one," is to be read in the
Queste du Graal. Only under this condition the way to the Grail Castle is opened and
one can persevere on the "perilous seat" without being crushed, as the Titans were
crushed by the thunderbolt of the Olympian god.
However, the peculiar main motive of the whole Grail cycle is, as already said, the
following: To the hero, who has gone so far in such accomplishment of a non-earthly
knighthood, another decisive task imposes itself: Once he is allowed into the Grail
Castle, he is to sympathize with the tragedy of the wounded, paralyzed or only
apparently living Grail King and take the initiative for the absolute act of restoration.
This is puzzled by the texts several times

17
expressed: Parzival is to "ask the question," for example. What question? Here the
authors seem to want to remain silent. One has the impression as if in this point
something prevents the author from speaking, and that a banal explanation is given to
cover the true answer. However, if one follows the inner logic of the entire narratives,
then it is almost clear what it is really about: The question to be asked is the question of
empire; it is not a question of knowing what certain objects in the Grail Castle mean, but
it is a question of feeling the tragedy of decay and, having once reached that
consummation which the vision of the Grail signifies, of raising the question of
restoration. Only on this basis the whole explains itself, and the miraculous virtue of this
enigmatic question becomes understandable: because the hero, who is not indifferent
and asks the question, redeems the kingdom with this question. Who was only
apparently alive disappears; who was wounded is healed. In any case, the hero takes
the place of the previous one as a new, true Grail King. A new cycle begins.
According to some texts, the dead knight, who seems to remind the hero of his revenge
and task, appears in a bier drawn by swans. The swan is the beast of Apollo in the land
of the Hyperboreans, in the Nordic primeval land. Drawn by swans, the Grail knights
travel from the highest center where Arthur rules: from Avallon.
In other texts the Grail hero is called the "Knight of the Two Swords". But in the
theological-political literature of that time, especially in the Ghibelline, the two swords
meant nothing else than the double power, the double dominion: the temporal and the
supernatural. A classical text speaks of the Hyperborean land as that from which
originated families such as that of the Heraclides, who bore at the same time the royal
and the priestly dignity.

The inaccessible and inviolable Grail Kingdom is also a reality in that form, according to
which it is not bound to any place, to any visible organization and to any earthly
kingdom. It is a homeland to which one belongs after a birth other than physical, in the
sense of a spiritual dignity. This kingdom unites in an unbreakable chain men who may
be scattered in the whole world, in space and time, in nations, to such an extent that
they appear scattered and one need not know about the other. In this sense, the realm
of the Grail, like that of Arthur and John, like Thule, like Mitgard and Avallon, is always
there. It is immovable because of its polar nature. Accordingly, it is not nearer or farther
to the current of history. Rather it is the currents of history, the people and their
empires, which are able to approach it more or less.
Now, at a certain time, the Ghibelline Middle Ages seemed to show such an approach to
a great extent and to offer, so to speak, the historical-spiritual material by means of
which the Grail Kingdom would become not only occult, but also visible and, as in the
primordial traditions, both an inner and an outer reality. In this way it can be argued
that the Grail was the crowning glory of the medieval imperial myth and the highest
creed of Ghibellineism. Such a confession is really to be sought in the legend rather than
in the life and the clear, political will of that time. Similarly, what moves most deeply
and dangerously in the individual expresses itself less through the shaping of reflective
consciousness than through the symbolism of dream and subconscious primordiality.

18
The Middle Ages waited for the Grail hero, so that the arid tree of the empire would
blossom again, every disruption, every usurpation, every opposition would be
destroyed and a sunny order would indeed prevail. The Grail Empire, which was to be
led to new splendor, is itself the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Grail
hero, who would have become the "ruler of all creatures" and the one to whom the
"highest power" would be handed over, would be the historical emperor, "Fridericus", if
he had been the executor of the Grail mystery or the Hyperborean mystery.
History and superhistory thus seemed to meet in an instant: There was a period of
metaphysical tension, a culmination and highest hope - afterwards again collapse and
dispersion.
All of the Grail literature seems to be crammed into a short period of time: No text
seems to have been written before the last quarter of the twelfth century and after the
first quarter of the thirteenth. At the end of the first quarter of the thirteenth century,
one suddenly stops speaking - as if obeying a watchword - of the Grail. Only after many
years and in already different mood one writes again about the Grail. It looks as if at a
certain moment a subterranean current had appeared, but immediately afterwards it
had withdrawn again into the invisible. The time of this submergence of the Grail
tradition corresponds approximately to the eve of the tragedy of the Templars. Perhaps
there lies the starting point to the collapse.
In Wolfram von Eschenbach the Grail knights are called "Templeisen", i.e. Templars,
although for him no temple comes into question. In other texts, the knights - monks of
the mysterious "island" - wear the sign of the Templars: red cross on white robe.
Elsewhere again, the Grail adventures take on a twilight mood of the gods: The Grail
hero probably accomplishes "revenge" and restores the realm. A heavenly voice,
however, announces that he should retreat with the Grail to a mysterious island. The
ship that comes to fetch him is the Templar ship: it carries white sails with a red cross.
Secret societies seem to have preserved, like diverging veins, the old symbols and
traditions of the Grail cycle after the collapse of the Hohenstaufen culture: Ghibelline
"faithful of love", later minstrels, hermetics. One reaches with it up to the Rosicrucian
movement. In the Rosicrucians, the same myth reappears: the Castle of the Sun, the
Emperor as "ruler of the fourth kingdom" and destroyer of any spiritual usurpation; an
invisible brotherhood of transcendent personalities united exclusively by their purpose
and essence; finally, the strange mystery of the resurrection of the King, a mystery that
turns into the statement that the King is already alive and awake. Whoever attends this
mystery wears the Templar flag: a white banner with a red cross. The Grail animal, the
dove, is also present.
However, a watchword seems to be given also here. At a certain moment, people
everywhere suddenly stop talking about the Rosicrucians. According to tradition, the
last true Rosicrucians left the Occident and retreated to "India" at the time when
absolutism, rationalism, individualism and enlightenment were already paving the way
for the French Revolution.

19
India is a symbol here. It means the site of the priest king John, the Aryan king of the
world. It is Avallon. It is Thule. According to a text, dark times have come over
Salvatierra, where the Monsalvatritters are located. The Grail is no longer allowed to
stay there. It will be taken to "India", to the kingdom of King John, which "lies near
Paradise". Once the Grail knights have landed there, the Monsalvat and his castle
suddenly and miraculously appear there, because "among the sinful peoples nothing of
it shall remain". Parzival himself takes the office of the "priest John". Of Shamballa, the
mystic "city of the north", where the "northern ways" or the "ways of the Aryan gods",
deva-yana, lead, it is said by the Tibetan ascetics: "It lies in my mind".

In every end lies a beginning decided. Today, a world of decay is dissolving. New forces
are emerging from the depths. Decisive battles are preparing. Primordial symbols are
evoked: under swastikas, eagles, Roman hyperborean axes, new peoples march. The
myth of the empire has a resurrection. There is already talk of a new state, which has to
become an order state: of a new order, which has to unite all occidental forces
struggling against the demony of the collective and the dark tide of the Third
International. With it, perhaps, new times are maturing: Times in which the myths of
our common Ghibelline greatness, of the invisible, inviolable center, of the Aryan ruler
who is to awaken, of the avenging and restoring hero will no longer be considered
fables of a lost romantic past, but will reveal themselves as the truth and reality of
those who can rightly be regarded as the only living ones.
It would be very welcome that especially the spiritual vanguard of the German renewal
movement would give itself the clearest account of this and on this basis would awaken
in itself the ability to find in its present myths the path that can really make possible the
reconnection with the origins, with the secret tradition of the Empire and the mystery
of the North.

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3 The weapons of the secret war

There is a secret war: this is the war waged underground by the forces of world
overthrow using means that almost always elude the common research methods. The
concept of secret war belongs to a so to speak three-dimensional conception of history;
not the two dimensions of apparent causes: Events and leaders, come into question,
but mainly the dimension of depth. In this subterranean dimension there are forces and
influences whose effect is determining, and which often cannot even be traced back to
the simply human - be it individual or collective.
Above all, we want to clarify the meaning of the term "subterranean" that we use. We
do not think of a dark irrational underground, which stands in the same relation to the
generally known part of history, as in detail the unconscious stands to the waking
consciousness. We can speak of the unconscious only in view of those who, according
to the three-dimensional conception of events, appear to us less as subjects than as
objects of history, in that in their thoughts and actions they hardly give an account of
the real influences they obey and of the real aims they realize. Thus their center falls
more into the preconscious and subconscious than into the clear, reflective
consciousness, and in this respect it may well be said that in fact the most decisive
actions of the secret war are conducted in the subconscious.
From the point of view of the true perpetrators of history, however, things are quite
different; here there can be no question either of the subconscious or of the
unconscious: Rather, we are dealing with thoroughly intelligent forces which know
exactly what they want and which means are most suitable for the realization of what
they want. To suppose that the ground of history is formed by the "irrational," the
"life," the "becoming," or any other of these obscure, newly invented entities, is only
philosophy and a very dangerous error: as will be expressed later, we even see in it one
of the suggestions which have been spread in certain circles in the service of certain
aims of the secret front. So: the third dimension of history must not disappear in the
fog of abstract philosophical concepts, but is to be thought as occupied and inhabited
by quite precise "intelligences". If certain secret societies can be the immediate organ
of these forces, one must not, however, persist in this and assume that these latter
exhaust the essence and effect of the invisible enemy, for it is a struggle which is
ultimately metaphysical. According to one of the various conceptions of history
prevalent in the Occident, history is not to be seen as a mechanism of natural, political,
economic or social causes, but as the development of a plan - the "providential" plan -
which is resisted by opposing forces with their historical bearers. Such forces are
sometimes referred to in moralistic terms as "forces of evil" or in religious Christian
terms as anti-Christian forces or forces of the Antichrist. Such a conception has
something for itself under the following three conditions: it is to be translated from the
theological to the practical level, it is to become the general methodological principle
for a deepened knowledge of the events, it is to be generalized and freed from the one-
sided Christian premises, because it is also to be applied in

21
is valid in relation to non-Christian culture. When speaking essentially of human
institutions, it is better without further ado to speak par excellence of forces of
tradition and forces of antitradition, of forces of spiritual hierarchy and cosmos and of
forces of revolutionary overthrow and chaos. Today, more than ever, there is a need to
deal with such thoughts, which are not to be confused with philosophical speculations,
but are to be considered as indispensable weapons for the right action. We would like
to recall a very significant passage of the "Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion": "The way
of thinking of the goyim (gentiles) is only animal. Thus, they are incapable of foreseeing
the consequences that a certain cause can produce when it is presented under a certain
light. It is precisely as a result of this difference in thinking between us (the Sages of
Zion) and the goyim that we easily come to the realization of being the chosen ones of
God and of our superhuman nature, compared to the instinctive and animalistic way of
thinking of the goyim. The latter well understand the facts, but they do not foresee
them and are incapable of inventing anything except material things." This document,
which makes Judaism the main perpetrator of the overthrow of the world, refers to the
goyim: if we simply let it apply generally to those whom we have called the "objects" of
history, this judgment on the goy still seems terribly apt today. The way of thinking of
most of today's "people of action" seems - compared with that of their masked
opponents - childlike indeed. They concentrate all their forces on the immediately
tangible, and they are incapable of grasping causal relations beyond an extremely
limited and almost always crassly materialistic horizon.
The secret front, on the other hand, works with what we would like to call, with a
parable taken from the positive sciences, the imponderable or the imponderables. It
very often causes changes which are almost imperceptible, from which slowly but
fatefully considerable effects go out. It almost never acts by a direct resistance, but by
an expedient guidance which leads the forces to the desired goal. What Wundt once
called the "heterogeneity of goals" plays the main role in this: certain people or circles,
who believe that they are only enforcing something they wanted, serve as tools to
realize or make possible quite different things, thus betraying a superior influence and
"meaning". Therefore, the "differential" between what is wanted and what has
happened, between the principles and programs and their true consequences in history,
offers the most precious material for research into the real forces at work in history.
Having said this, let us consider some of the means most frequently employed in our
times by the masked forces of world overthrow to camouflage their actions, to prevent
those of their opponents in advance, and to exert their influence constantly.
1.) The positivist suggestion. First of all, one should get acquainted with the idea that
the so-called "positive" method of looking at history and events is rather a suggestion
systematically spread in the modern culture by the anti-traditional forces to cover up
their action, than a spontaneous phenomenon or the prejudice peculiar to a very limited
way of thinking. Those who believe that history is exclusively man-made and
determined only by economic, political and social factors do not look far and

22
confuses the causes with the effects. This is exactly what the forces that want to act
underground desire. A culture dominated by the "positive" prejudice offers the most
excellent condition for acting from the third dimension. To a large extent, unfortunately,
this is the case with modern culture. It is a culture directly incapacitated, blind and
defenseless by the positivist, rationalist and scientific prejudice. Today, although we
speak of renewal, we are far from tearing off the mask of so many ideas that still form
the basis of the modern way of thinking and teaching: Ideas that are not so much errors
or limitations as suggestions, purposely spread by the conspirators greedy for
destruction and domination.
We have already spoken of certain conceptions of history which are no longer
"positivistic" and have as their basis "becoming", "life" or "spirit". We can see in it an
example of the application of a second instrument of the secret war, namely:
2.) The tactics of substitution. It is used every time when the danger of "awakening"
makes itself felt and the "objects of history" try to get rid of the ideas through which the
occult play of the forces of world overthrow easily prevails. In the case just indicated, in
fact, these unclear concepts of "becoming," "life," "unconscious," etc., are only a bait
for those who were no longer satisfied with the positivist schemes, so that their eye
does not turn where it should look. Through the fog of such concepts the field of vision
is veiled as well as through the dark night of positivistic agnosticism. One plays with
philosophy and world view, while the conspiracy continues.
The tactic of replacement also develops in a significant and effective way as a
3.) Tactics of falsified allegories. It is the following: The effects of the work of
destruction can carry over into the material and take such a visible and extreme form
that they finally call for a reaction. This reaction then searches in an unclear way for
symbols and myths that are suitable for the reconstruction, and can even find such.
They are almost always symbols and points of reference from the tradition-bound past,
which are awakened to new life by the deeper forces of a race threatened with final
destruction. In such cases the secret struggle does not assert itself with any direct
action, i.e. these symbols are apparently not resisted, one strives rather to let only
forgeries and imitations of them come to the spread and validity. Thus, the reaction is
either dampened or deflected or even reversed in the opposite direction. In this
direction, the same influences then set in that worked in the evil and decay fought and
tried to be resisted. This tactic can take place in various fields, spiritual as well as
political, and seems to be particularly popular today. It is worthwhile to list examples of
it.
The most typical case is formed by "traditionalism". Tradition is bondage to the
metaphysical-forming. Tradition is the secret of all that has form in a higher sense,
consequently also of what race and culture mean in a higher sense. Continuity, i.e.,
uninterruptedness, overcoming the temporal within the temporal, is tradition, and this
quality tradition owes to the existence of both a knowledge of symbols, principles, and
meanings that are

23
The modern world is often a place where the vague longing for a return to tradition is
diverted into the form of "traditionalism", i.e. into the form of vague assumptions of
dilettante reality. Now it often happens in the modern world that the vague longing for
a return to tradition is diverted into the form of "traditionalism", i.e. into the form of
vague assumptions of dilettantish or militant character, which confuse tradition with
customs and habits, end up in a short-winded particularism and lazily persist in certain
traditional forms without knowing anything about their spirit. As such, the
"traditionalist" entities provide the best pretext for playing their opponents, whose
attack against traditionalism is only the cloak of their struggle against tradition, and
which has as its true aim the promotion of revolutionary overthrow. Thus the reaction
is prevented and the maneuver brilliantly leads to the desired result. One should be
very careful that something similar does not happen with the main ideas of today's
renewing movements - or with race and empire ideas, Romanism, Aryanism, etc. It can
be argued that among these ideas there is not one which is not exposed to the danger
of similar transmutations, because the opponent knows only too well what healing
effect could come out of these ideas if they were to break through in the most genuine
and highest form.
4.) Tactics of upheaval. - The secret forces of the world overthrow knew very well that
the precondition of the order to be destroyed is the supernatural element, the spirit,
conceived not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a higher reality, final goal of the
process of the transcendent perfection of the personality and legitimation of every true
rulership. Having limited the influence which the last occidental creed could still exert in
this respect (we cannot here examine the means employed to this end), the forces of
subversion had to strive that every new aspiration for the supernatural awakening
outside the ruling religion would be deflected and paralyzed. What we may call Ne0-
spiritualism, with reference to the various theosophistic, spiritualistic, orientalizing, and
occultistic sects of modern times, is to be regarded mainly as the result of such a
maneuver. In all this, again, it is almost exclusively a matter of distorted images,
imitations and distortions of a spiritual knowledge, for which circles of half-educated
people and enthusiasts are to blame, who in this respect often seem to be subject to a
truly demonic influence.
In this way, a double result has been achieved. First of all, it has been easy to relate the
discredit into which these imitations had to fall to the teachings themselves, by which
these latter have been rendered incapable of having a dangerous effect. Lately, this
maneuver seems to be carried out also by political means: there are, for example,
circles that see everywhere only "Freemasonry" and secret societies, where they are
esoteric symbols, even if the reference goes to ancient traditions that have nothing to
do with the heresies of Freemasonry and have spiritual-aristocratic features. In
addition, there is the positivist prejudice that sees only superstition and fantasy in all
this anyway.
In the second place, by means of misunderstood "exercises", one has come to direct
most of those who practically aspired to the supernatural, not to the supernatural, but
to the sub-natural, i.e. to the "unconscious", to mediumship and, in general, to a world
which, far from signifying the increase of the normal personality, only its collapse and
decomposition.

24
The world conspiracy has thus eliminated the danger that the true supernatural in the
modern anti-material culture could have meant for the secret front. With neo-
spiritualism the world conspiracy has thus eliminated the danger which the true
supernatural in the modern anti-material culture could have meant for the secret front,
and it now looks with satisfaction at those who proclaim the secret doctrine of the
superman in theosophistic circles before old women, inferiors and sub-humans, or at
the others who dance to the tune of the rationalist-political idols.
5.) Tactic of the setback. - It is realized when one of the forces, which one wants to
eliminate from the world because of its still tradition-bound character, is induced to
take the initiative for an action, which in a first moment is directed against a similar, i.e.
traditional force; when this is destroyed, it turns against the former and carries it away.
The secret forces of world overthrow often reach the goal by suitable infiltrations, so
that the representatives of one tradition believe to defend it best by attacking and
discrediting other traditions. Whoever does not account for this and attacks the
tradition in the form of another culturally related people for material reasons, must be
prepared to see sooner or later also his own tradition attacked by a movement of the
backlash, so to speak.* The forces of world overthrow count very much on this tactic:
consequently they strive by all means to keep every higher idea under the tyranny of
particularistic interests, of proselytizing, of pride and greed: they know quite well that
this is the best method of destroying all unity and true solidarity, and of fostering a
state of disunion in which their game becomes very easy.
(* Example: During World War I, the Russian monarchy allowed itself to be instrumentalized by the Western
powers against the German and Austrian monarchies. In response, the German government promoted the
Bolshevik overthrow in Russia by having Lenin travel to St.Petersburg. By the end of the war, however,
Bolshevism was raging in Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and after the war all three emperors were
eliminated. The calculation of the Western powers or the forces behind them had worked out. This will be
discussed in the following section. BS)
The case is similar with any Machiavellian use of revolutionary forces. Some short-
sighted statesmen have at times thought that it could possibly mean a strengthening of
their people to promote or support the revolution in opposing nations. Without
suspecting it, they have come to the opposite conclusion. While they thought they were
using the revolution as a means, the revolution has made them its tool: having found
the roads paved with other nations thanks to those politicians, the revolution has
almost always reached and demolished the first ones as well. It can be said that the
whole of modern history has been the scene of an overthrow that has been tragically
realized precisely in this way. In this connection it can never be sufficiently emphasized
that only the unconditional, ascetic, unshakable fidelity to an idea can protect one from
the forces of occult war; if the capacity of this spiritual fidelity and the solidarity of a
kind of holy war is lost, if one obeys the random motives of a so-called realpolitik, then
the front of resistance is broken, and with it the possibility of any true independence
and freedom is lost.
Let us mention one of the last manifestations of such tactics: the "principle of
nationalities" and "anti-imperialism" are myths used by the Freemason and Jewish
masterminds of the Allies to mobilize every force against the

25
Central European empires and for the destruction of them; but they have now become
ideologies which in the future will be able best to promote, for example, a general
uprising of all colored peoples against the great European powers and their claim to
supremacy.* No wonder that on this basis such an ideology has passed into the hands of
the Comintern and become an important tool of Bolshevik propaganda outside Europe.
(* This is how the British Empire perished - despite the victory in two world wars. The British aristocracy
rubbed its eyes in wonder - it too had been duped by the forces of subversion. BS)
6.) Tactics of scapegoating. - When the secret forces of world overthrow feel the
danger of being exposed in some aspect, they strive to direct and concentrate all the
attention of their opponents on certain elements that can be considered only partially
or only in a subordinate way responsible for their misdeeds. The whole reaction is then
discharged on these elements, which have become real scapegoats. The occult front is
then free to continue its game, since its opponents believe that they have now
discovered the enemy and have nothing further to look for. As champions of anti-
Semitism in Italy, we certainly cannot arouse suspicion: that is why we have sometimes
admonished certain radical anti-Semites to be careful lest, seeing everywhere only the
Jew, they occasionally fall into such a trap. The same admonition could be addressed to
those who see everywhere only Freemasonry, and so on, since such tactics are effective
in many other fields as well. In saying this, of course, we do not mean to deny in the
least the degree of culpability of Jews and Freemasons, but rather to raise the question
whether even deeper and more mysterious forces have determined the functional role
of Judaism and Freemasonry in modern times, and we are convinced that it would be
too good to be true if, with the elimination of Judaism and Freemasonry, a golden age
could be ushered in without further ado, as some sincerely believe. One should beware
of any one-sidedness and never lose sight of the overall picture of the true secret front.

Now for the:

7.) Tactics of dilutions. - It is a special aspect of the "tactics of replacement". In order to
understand what it is about, the following should be said in advance: The process that
has led up to the present general crisis has distant origins and different phases. In each
of these phases the crisis was already present, although in a form not yet acute,
potential rather than actual. The doctrine of "progress" can be considered as one of
those suggestions that the secret forces of world overthrow spread in order to make
the eye turn away from the origins and the process of decline goes on and on under the
sign of illusory values, especially the dazzle of the "achievements" of the technical-
mechanical civilization. The tragic experiences of the last years, however, have
managed to partially banish this hypnosis, with which one has begun to account for the
fact that the speed of the alleged "progress" meant only that of a race to the abyss. To
stop and to return to the origins as the only way to a new normal culture became then
slogans. The secret front then mobilized new means to prevent any radicalism. First of
all, it coined and spread the slogan of "untimeliness"; then it understood it,

26
to direct the forces striving towards the origins again to states in which the crisis and
the evil appeared in milder and consequently less felt forms. This trap has also snapped
shut. The leaders of the world upheaval know, of course, that from this moment on
there is no longer any great danger: the reaction will soon follow the same path and
find itself again at the starting point, but now without the possibility of still offering
resistance to the final collapse.
One could cite numerous historical examples of this tactic as well. The leaders of today's
counter-revolutionary movements should be very attentive to this. For example, certain
features of today's nationalism should be carefully examined from this point of view.
Everyone knows about the subversive and anti-hierarchical role played by the
collectivist-demagogic concept of nations (since the French Revolution, BS) vis-à-vis the
preceding cultural forms. Now the reference in today's struggle against Bolshevism and
its various internationals goes back predominantly to the idea of nation. It is therefore
necessary to shape the concept of nation in such a way that it no longer means a stage
of that path which has just led to the corruption to be fought today. We have already
had occasion in our writings to consider this problem more closely and to distinguish
systematically between two opposing concepts of the nation.*
(* See the essay "Das Doppelantlitz des Nationalismus"; in our collection the No. 8. BS)
Here we must limit ourselves to two words. According to the first conception, nation
means only the mass - we have intentionally not said people, but, in French, "nation" - it
is only a pretext to abolish any difference and rank in a humiliating leveling. As such, in
occidental history, the nation appears in the context of the demise of the old
hierarchical states and as a prelude to that further leveling which will no longer have as
its general denominator the nation but the international. - According to the other view,
on the other hand, the nation as a particular community of the people has the
significance of a first reaction against internationalist egalitarianism: it already
embodies a principle of difference which is to be developed in a further intra-ethnic
meaningful division and ranking. Then there is no longer talk of nation, but rather of
empire in the tradition-bound sense.
8.) The tactic of confusing the principle with its representatives. - In many respects, the
decay of tradition-bound institutions has as its precondition the decay of their leaders
and representatives. The real dissolution and destruction, however, is made possible by
the tactic of confusing the principle with the person, and this is another weapon of the
secret war. If the representative of a certain principle appears unworthy, one proceeds
in the process against this representative at the same time or even essentially against
the principle itself; in any case, one also drags the principle into this process. Instead of
declaring that the representative is not worthy of the principle and replacing him with
someone else, one claims that the principle is wrong, corrupt and in decay and must be
replaced by a new principle.
Everyone knows that in only too many cases the attack against one or another
degenerate aristocrat has turned into an attack against the aristocratic principle itself
and into a weapon of demagogy. History abounds with examples of this tactic, to which
world subversion owes so much. The hierarchical order of ancient Aryan society
culminated in a spiritual rulership, that of the warrior nobility,

27
The collapse of this order came about in many respects as a result of the tactics just
described. The collapse of this order was in many respects brought about by the tactics
just indicated. The warrior nobility did not rise up against the degenerate
representatives of pure spiritual authority in order to replace them by other more
worthy representatives of the same principle, but in order to emancipate themselves
under this pretext and to lay claim to the highest authority. In a subsequent phase or
culture, the third estate rose up against the degenerate warrior nobility, not so that
true aristocrats and warriors might take its place, but to usurp power. In a third phase,
the process against a certain destructive and negative side of capitalism and the
bourgeoisie (i.e. against the third estate) has not had as its goal a corresponding
reform, but has been the pretext for the revolt of the masses and the usurpation of the
gradually deposed power by the proletariat: Class struggle, Third International, birth of
Bolshevism.
If we have had to confine ourselves to a few examples and to deal mainly with the
exposition of the principles, we hope that this circumstance will not be an obstacle to
the discovery of the manifold applications of these principles and of the valuable results
to which they may lead when applied systematically in any field. Indeed, it can be
asserted that there is hardly any field in which the secret struggle has not taken place in
some way.
Let us reiterate that these are not "philosophical" attitudes, but very serious matters.
We are even convinced that no leader or fighter of the front of counter-revolution and
tradition can be considered mature and up to his true tasks until he has developed
within himself the ability to see clearly into this subterranean world of causes and to
fight the enemy with the same invisible weapons.
I remind you once again of the myth of the Wise Men of Zion: compared to them, the
people who understand only the "facts" are like dull-witted animals. Especially in times
which, like today's, are prelude to the final decision of a whole cultural world, we must
feel the demand in us to awaken in this elite or order, which has been spoken of so
often in our lectures, the ability to supplement the material struggle by an invisible,
subtle struggle, by a secret, inexorable knowledge, which now, however, is not in the
service of dark powers, but of the bright, sunny principle of Aryan spirituality.

4 The sacred character of kingship

From: Deutsches Adelsblatt, March 4, 1933

28
Every great "traditional" form of culture was characterized by the presence of beings
who, by virtue of their "divinity," that is, by an innate or acquired superiority over
human and natural conditions, appeared capable of representing the living and effective
presence of the metaphysical principle in the bosom of the temporal order. Of such a
nature, according to the deeper meaning of his etymology and the original value of his
function, was the pontiff, the "bridge-builder" or "way-builder" between the natural and
the supernatural. Further, the pontifex traditionally identified himself with the rex, in
keeping with the prevailing notion of a royal divinity and a priestly kingship (1). The
"divine" kings thus embodied in the permanent state that life which is "beyond life". By
their presence, by virtue of their "pontifical" mediation, by the force of the rites
entrusted to their power and of the institutions of which they were the originators or
supports, spiritual influences radiated upon the world of men, permeating their
thoughts, intentions and actions, forming a rampart against the dark forces of inferior
nature; which gave to the whole of life an order which made it suitable to serve as a
fruitful basis for the realization of something higher; which consequently created the
general conditions for prosperity, welfare, and "happiness."

The basis of the authority of kings and rulers, that for which they were revered, feared
and glorified, was in the ancient worldview essentially this their sacred and superhuman
quality, understood not as an empty figure of speech but as a reality. As one felt the
invisible as preceding and higher principle opposite the visible and temporal, accordingly
one recognized such natures immediately the priority over all and the natural and
absolute ruler right. What is lacking in all traditional cultures and only becomes a matter
of a subsequent and already descending period of time is the lay, worldly, merely
political idea of kingship and therefore that of a primacy based only, be it on force and
ambition, be it on natural and worldly qualities, such as intelligence, strength, skill,
courage, wisdom, concern for the material common good and so on. Even stranger to
tradition is the idea that power is conferred on the king by those he governs; that his
laws and authority are expressions of popular consciousness and subject to its approval.
Rather, at the root of all temporal power was found the spiritual authority of what might
be called a "divine being in human form" (2). Bâsileis ieroí: The king-more than a man, a
sacred cosmic being-possesses the transcendent power that distances him from every
mortal, enabling him to bestow upon his subjects gifts beyond human reach, and
enabling him to give efficacy to the ritual acts of tradition to which, as we have said, he
has the prerogative, and in which were recognized the limbs of true "governance" and
the supernatural supports of all tradition-bound life (3). Therefore, kingship prevailed
and was considered natural. It did not need material coercion. It imposed itself first and
irresistibly through the spirit. "Glorious is the dignity of a god on earth," says an Aryan
text, "but hard to attain for the inadequate: worthy to be a king is only he whose mind
rises to such heights."

29
In the tradition, the symbol of the sun corresponded essentially to the royal divinity. The
king was recognized as having the same "glory" that belongs to the sun and the light -
symbols of the higher nature - when they triumph over the darkness every morning. "As
king he ascends the throne of Horus (the sun-god) of the living, like his father Râ, every
day"; "I have ordained that you rise as king of the south and the north on the throne of
Horus, like the sun, forever" - these are phrases referring to the ancient Egyptian
kingship. They coincide, by the way, exactly with the Iranian ones, where it is said of the
king that he is "of the same race as the gods", he "has the same throne as Mithras, he
rises with the sun", and where he is called particeps siderum (partaker of the star
power), "lord of peace, salvation of men, eternal man, victor who rises with the sun".

This solar "glory" or "victory", which thus determined the royal nature and its right from
above, was not, by the way, limited to a mere symbol, but identified with a real and
creating power, of which the king was considered the bearer. In ancient Egypt the king
was also called "fighting Horus" - hor âhâ - to denote this character of victory or glory of
the solar principle embodied in the king: the king in Egypt was not only of "divine origin"
but was also "appointed" as such and then periodically authenticated by rites
representing precisely the victory of the sun-god Horus over Typhon-Seth, the demon of
the inferior realm. Such rites, by the way, were attributed the power to attract to
themselves a "power" and a "life" that supernaturally "entwined" the king's abilities. But
the ideogram uas, "power", is the scepter that the gods and the kings carry, an
ideogram that in the older texts stands for another scepter in serrated form, in which
one recognizes the zigzag of the lightning. The royal "power" thus appears as a
manifestation of the celestial lightning power; and the union of the signs "life-power,"
ânshûs, forms a word which also denotes the "milk of flame" on which the immortals
feed, itself not without relation to the uraeus, the divine flame, which is sometimes life-
awakening, sometimes destructive, and whose symbol surrounds the head of the
Egyptian king. The different elements, then, converge exclusively in the idea of a "non-
earthly" fluid, a power - sa - that consecrates and certifies the king's victorious solar
nature and that "dashes" - sotpu - from one king to another, forming the unbroken
"golden" chain of the royal race destined to rule (4).

According to the tradition of the Far East, the king, the "son of heaven" - T'ien-Tse -, that
is, the one not born according to the laws of mortals, has a "heavenly mission" - T'ien-
Ming -, which likewise involves the idea of a supernatural real power. The nature of this
power "from heaven" is, according to the designation of Lao-Tse, "doing-without-doing"
(wei-wu-wei) or immaterial doing by presence. It is invisible like the air and has
nevertheless the irresistible of a natural force: the forces of the ordinary man - says
Meng-Tse - bend under it like the stalks bend under the wind (5). Anchored in this force
or "virtue," the ruler in ancient China actually formed the center of every other thing or
energy. It was believed that on his conduct secretly depended not only the glory or
misery of his kingdom (it is the "virtue" - Te - of the ruler, less his

30
example, whereby the behavior of his people becomes good or evil), but also the
regulated and favorable course of the natural events themselves. His function as the
center involved and required his persistence in that inward, "victorious" mode of being
which has been spoken of and to which the sense of the familiar expression
"immutability in the center" may here correspond. But if this is so, no power can arise
against its "virtue" to disturb the traditionally ordered course of human and even
natural things. So, in every normal event, the ruler had to seek the ultimate cause and
the secret responsibility for it in himself.

More generally, the idea of sacred interventions by which man, with his hidden powers,
maintains the natural order and renews, so to speak, the life of nature, belongs to an
earliest tradition and very often interferes with the idea of the king himself. That the
first and most essential function of the king consists in the performance of those ritual
and sacrificial acts which were the focus of life in the tradition-bound world is, in any
case, an idea which persists in all regular forms of tradition, as far back as the Greek
cities and as far as Rome (6), producing the inseparability of the royal dignity from the
sacrificial and pontifical already mentioned. The king, endowed with non-earthly
powers, a divine being, appeared naturally as the one directly capable of bringing to
fruition the power of the rites and of opening the ways to the higher world. In those
forms of tradition in which a special caste of priests appears, therefore, the king, if he
corresponds to his original dignity and function, belongs to it, as its head, pontifex
maximus. If, on the contrary, among certain peoples we find the custom of deposing or
eliminating the head when a failure occurs - because this failure was considered by
them as a sign of decay of the mystical power of "happiness", because of which one had
the right to be the head
-, we have here the echo of something which, though in forms of materialistic
degeneration, leads us back to the same sequence of ideas. And among the Nordic
peoples, up to the time of the Goths, where the principle of royal divinity remained
untouched (the king was here called Ases, proper name of a certain Scandinavian
category of gods), an unfortunate event, such as. a famine, a pestilence, or a crop
failure, if not exactly the absence of the mystical power of "luck" tied to the king, was
nevertheless considered the result of something the king must have committed, which
undercut the objective efficacy of his power.

It was therefore required of the king that he preserve the symbolic and solar quality of
the invincible - sol invictus, hélios aníketos - and thus maintain the state of an unshakable
and superhuman centrality, which corresponds exactly to the Far East's idea of
"unshakability at the center. Otherwise, the power, and with it the function, passed to
the one who proved that he knew better how to draw it to himself. Already here we can
point out one of the cases in which the idea of "victory" becomes the junction of
different meanings. For those who understand it correctly, the legend of the king of the
woods of Nemi, whose dignity passed to the one who succeeded in surprising and
"killing" him in a time of priestly kingship, is highly significant in this respect - and
Frazer's attempt to explain manifold traditions of the same

31
type, which exist pretty much everywhere in the world, can be traced back to this very
legend. Of course, here the "trial" as a physical fight - should it never have taken place in
reality - is only the materialistic reduction of something which has a higher meaning. To
be able to grasp the deeper meaning hidden in the legend of the priest-king of Nemi, it
is necessary to remember that according to the tradition, only an "escaped slave" was
entitled to pose the Rex Nemorensis (i.e. understood esoterically, a being escaped from
the fetters of inferior nature), after having first come into possession of a branch of the
sacred oak. But the oak is equivalent to the "tree of the world" of many other traditions
and is a common symbol to denote the primordial power of life; expressing that only a
being who wishes to partake of this power can seek to wrest dignity from the Rex
Nemorensis. As for this dignity, it must be remembered that the oak, and also the grove
of which the priest-king of Nemi was the "rex", was related to Diana, and that Diana was
even the "wooer" of the king of the woods. The great Asiatic goddesses of nature were
often symbolized in the ancient traditions of the Orient by sacred trees: wherein we
discover, among the symbols, the idea of a kingship derived from marriage or mating
with this mystical "life" force - which is also that of transcendent wisdom and
immortality - embodied both in the goddess and in the tree. Thus the saga of Nemi
acquires the general meaning that we find in many other myths and legends of lore,
namely, that of a "victor" or "hero" who, as such, comes into possession of a woman or
goddess in place of the rex, who in other lore appears in the indirect meaning of a
guardian of fruits of immortality (the female figures in relation to the symbolic tree in
the myths of Heracles, Jason, Gilgamesh, etc.) or in the direct meaning of a
personification of the secret powers of the world and life or of superhuman knowledge.
(7)

Remnants of traditions in which the themes contained in the archaic saga of the King of
the Woods recur, moreover, remain until the end of the Middle Ages, if not longer, and
are always linked to the ancient idea that rightful kingship has the propensity to
manifest, even in specific and concrete, we would like to say "experimental" ways,
infallible signs of its supernatural nature. A single example: before the outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War, Venice demanded of Philip of Valois that he prove his actual right to
wear the royal crown by one of the following means. The first, the victory over his
adversary, with whom he would have had to fight on the tournament field, brings us
back, in fact, to the Rex Nemorensis and to the mystical authentication of any "victory".
(8) About the other two means, we read in a text of the time: "If Philip of Valois is true
king of France, as he claims, let him show it by exposing himself to hungry lions, for lions
never wound a true king; or else let him perform the miracle of healing the sick, as the
other true kings are wont to do... In case of failure, he would be considered unworthy of
his crown."

The supernatural power revealed in the victory or in the thaumaturgical virtue cannot
be separated, even in times that, like those of Philip of Valois, already fall in the
"modern" era, from the idea that traditionally one has of the true

32
and rightful kingship had. (9) And if we disregard the actual assimilation of the
individuals to them, the idea remains that "what brought the kings into such veneration
was mainly the divine virtues and powers that were present only in them and not also in
other men." Joseph de Maistre writes: "God literally establishes the kings. He prepares
the royal families; he makes them flourish in a cloud that veils their origin. At last they
come forth, crowned with glory and honor; they establish themselves, and this is the
greatest sign of their legitimacy. They rise of their own accord, without violence from
one side and without explicit negotiation from the other. There is a certain magnificent
calm here that is not easy to describe. Rightful usurpation-that would seem to me the
most apt expression (were it not too bold) to designate this kind of origin, to which time
then soon gives its consecration." (10)

Notes
1. Cf. Servius, Ad Aened., III 268: "Majorum haec consuetudo at rex esset
etiam sacerdos et pontifex". The same can be said - as is well known - for the
Ugrian tribes.
2. In the Mânavadharmçastra (VII, 8) the king is called a "great deity in
human form". The Egyptian king was considered a manifestation of Râ and of
Horus. The kings of Alba and of Rome personified Jupiter, the Uranian Odin
and Tiuz, the Assyrian Baal, the Iranian the god of light, and so on. The idea of
a divine or celestial - as we shall see, especially a solar - descent is common to
all pre-modern royal traditions.
3. Conversely, in Greece and Rome, the king could no longer be king if he
proved unworthy of the priesthood, for whose sake he was rex sacrorum, first
and supreme executor of the rites for the entity whose simultaneous
temporal case he represented.
4. One of the names of the Egyptian kings is "Horus made of gold", where
the gold denotes the "solar" fluid from which the "incorruptible body" of the
immortals arises: to be equated with the above-mentioned "milk of flame"
and the "power of lightning", both of which also strengthen themselves at the
solar flame and refer to the king. It is not uninteresting to note that glory
figures in Christian tradition as an attribute of God - gloria in excelsis deo -
and that, according to mystical theology, in "glory" the vision of "beatitude" is
fulfilled. The Christian iconography is used to spread it as an aureole around
the head of the saint, which gives the sense of the royal Egyptian uraeus and
the radiant crown of the Iranian-Roman royalty.
5. On the nature of the "virtue" of which the king is the possessor, cf.
Dschung-Yung, XXXIII, 6, where it is said that the secret actions of "heaven"
reach the utmost degree of the immaterial - "they have neither sound nor
smell", they are delicate "like the lightest feather". On doing-without-doing,
cf. ibid. XXVI, 5-6: "It is by the breadth and depth of their virtue that those
who are perfect in the highest degree assimilate themselves to the earth; by
the height and

33
They are like heaven in their splendor, and like space and time in their extent and
duration, which are without limits. He who lives in this glorious perfection does
not show himself, and yet, like the earth, he reveals himself by his beneficence;
he does not move, and yet, like the heavens, he causes manifold change; he does
not act, and yet, like space and time, he brings his works to their final
consummation." Further on - XXXI, 1 - it is said that only such a man "is worthy to
possess the supreme authority and to command men."
6. Aristotle (Pol. VI, 5, 11; cf. III, 9) says: "Kings have this their dignity by
being priests of a common cult." The most important act that fell to the king
of Sparta was the offering of sacrifices; and the same could be said of the first
Roman kings, and then of the rulers of the imperial period.
7. Cf. J. Evola, La tradizione ermetica, Bari 1931, pp. 13-25. Some ancient
traditions concerning a "feminine" origin of royal power can sometimes be
interpreted in this way. Their meaning is then exactly the opposite of that
proper to the "gynecocratic" view, to which we shall perhaps return on
another occasion. - On the connection between divine woman, tree and
sacral kingship, cf. also the turns of phrase in the Zohar (III, 50b., III, 51 a - also
II, 144b, 145a, with reference to Moses as the consort of the "matron"),
where it is said that "the way that leads to the great tree of life is the great
matron" and that "all the power of the king dwells in the matron," since the
"matron" is the "feminine" and immanent form of the divinity; that to which,
later on, among the Gnostics, as the "holy spirit," often corresponds again a
feminine symbol (the virgin Sophia). In Japanese tradition, which persists
unchanged to this day, the origin of imperial power is traced to a sun
goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, and the crux of the ceremony for the rise to
power - dajo sai - is given by the relationship that the king establishes with
her through the "offering of the new food". - As for the "tree", it is not
uninteresting to note that it remains in relation to the idea of emperor also in
the medieval sagas: the last emperor, before his death, will hang scepter,
crown and sword on the "scrawny tree", usually located in the symbolic
region of Presbyter John, just as the dying Roland hangs his unbreakable
sword on the "tree". Further agreement: Frazer has pointed out the
relationship between the branch that the runaway slave must break from the
sacred oak of Nemi in order to be able to fight with the king of the forests,
and the Golden Branch that allows Aeneas to descend into the underworld as
a living man, i.e., to be initiated into the unseen as a living man. Now,
however, one of the gifts that Emperor Frederick II receives from the
presbyter will be precisely a ring that makes "invisible", i.e. transfers into
immortality and into the invisible. In Greek lore, the immortality of the hero is
often synonymous with their passage to immortal life. The ring provides the
"victory": just as Siegfried in the Nibelungen through the symbolic virtue of
making himself invisible.

34
 Machens conquers the "divine" Brunhild and leads her to the royal wedding
camp.
8. On another occasion we shall better elucidate the conception which here -
as in the "Waflenprobe" of medieval chivalry - actually confronts us only in
roughly materialistic form. According to tradition, the victor was such only
insofar as a superhuman energy was embodied in him; and a superhuman
energy was embodied in him insofar as he became victor: two moments in a
single act, the coincidence of a "descent" with an "ascent".
9. The thaumaturgic virtue is also confirmed by tradition to the Roman
emperors Hadrian and Vespasian (Tacitus, Histories, IV, 81; Suetonius,
Vespasian, VII). Among the Carolingians we find traces of an idea according to
which the soteric power, as it were, materially affects the royal vestments.
Beginning with Robert the Pious, passing through the kings of France, and
from Edward the Confessor through those of England, up to the age of the
revolutions, the thaumaturgical power is then transmitted by dynastic means,
extending at first to the cure of all diseases, and later confining itself to some
of them, and proving itself in thousands of cases, so much so that it appears,
in the words of Pierre Mathieu, "as the only miracle of duration in the religion
of the Christians." Among the spiritual influences that worked in the heroes
whose cult was celebrated in Greece, besides the prophetic ones, was often
counted the soteric virtue.
10. Also in the Iranian tradition the opinion prevails that the nature of a royal
being must prevail sooner or later inevitably. From the passage of De Maistre
one takes the custom of the symbolic covering with a cloud, which one
applied traditionally, in Greece above all, to the stolen and immortalized
"heroes"; besides, here the old mystical idea of the victory becomes
apparent, insofar as the "putting in" is, according to De Maistre, the "greatest
sign of the legitimacy" of the kings.

5 The hidden background of the Middle Ages

35
from: Europäische Revue, IX, 7.1933; 8.1933

The present reflections on the spirit of the Ghibelline Middle Ages have their starting
point in the idea of the primordial opposition between two particular spiritual attitudes.
One is the royal-warlike, the other the religious-priestly. The first forms the masculine,
the second the feminine pole of the spirit. The first has the "solar" and "victorious"
symbol; it corresponds to the ideal of a spirituality which signifies power, victory, order
of the various forces and people in an organism which is at once worldly and supra-
worldly in the sense of a sacral ideal of empire. All that is difference, personality and
hierarchy is affirmed and glorified by it. - To the other attitude is inherent the moon
symbol - i.e., the symbol of a nature which has the principle of its light apart from itself.
Limiting dualism, division between spirit and power, suspicion and contempt against any
higher masculine assertion of personality, pathos of equality and brotherhood, of "fear
of God", "sin" and "redemption" are the elements that come to the fore here.

What history shows us until today as a conflict between religious authority and
"worldly" power is only an echo and later materialized form of this contrast. The
religious attitude is in any case so little to be equated with the "spirit" at all that it
means only the relatively late result of a degradation process which an older, higher and
just "solar" shaped tradition has experienced. If we look at the constitution of the
greatest tradition-bound cultures - from China to the Ur-Nordic families, from Egypt to
Iran, from pre-Columbian Peru to ancient Rome, etc. -, we can always confirm the idea
of an absolute unity of the two powers: kingship and spirituality. At the head of the
hierarchy there is no church, but a "divine kingship"; not the ideal of the "saints", but of
those beings who, through the superiority and conquering power of their rites
understood as "divine technique", play the same masculine and dominating role in
relation to the various spiritual powers or gods that a leader embodies in relation to
men.

Only a process of spiritual emasculation could lead from such a level down to the
"religious" attitude. The distance between man and God and the servitude of the former
to the latter in favor of the priestly caste became greater and greater, the traditional
unity dissolved, and in its place came the division between unmanly spirituality - priest-
spirit - and un-spiritual masculinity - secularization of the idea of state and king. If we
owe especially to the Aryan races the most luminous forms of the ancient "solar"
cultures, in the Occident the victory of the religious spirit and in its wake the
Orientalization of the Greco-Roman world, the collapse of imperial thought, and the
advent of early Christianity itself are essentially due to the Semitic element.

In this essay, we will highlight some little-known features of medieval culture in order to
serve as evidence that, in this culture, the striving

36
was effective after reconstruction of a universal tradition whose ultimate meaning -
despite all outward appearances - was anti-Christian or super-Christian.

The Nordic-Aryan Awakening of Romanism

With great probability such a turn is due to the Nordic-Germanic races. Already in the
oldest testimonies these races appear closely related to the Achaean, Uriran, early
Roman and generally Nordic-Aryan. Because of the hard, unmitigated, roughly formed
outer forms of their life and their customs, these races could also be called "barbarian"
in comparison with a culture which, by its soulless legal-administrative organization and
its hedonistic, literary and metropolitan turn, had already sunk to the synonym of decay.
These "barbarian" races guarded in their myths and legends the high spirituality of a
primordial tradition reflected in a life shaped by martial and masculine values of dignity,
pride, freedom, honor and loyalty.

The gods originally recognized and worshipped by such races are clearly embodiments
not of the religious but precisely of the "heroic" spirit. It is the shining host of the Aesir
in their permanent fight against the "giants" and elemental beings. It is Donar-Thor, the
"strongest of the strong", the "irresistible", the "lord of the castle against fear". It is
Odin-Wotan, the giver of victory and wisdom, the father of the heroes chosen by the
Valkyries on the battlefield, whom he makes his sons and immortals. Heroic dynasties,
like those of the Wälsungen, fight to the last against the ragnarökkr, i.e. the "darkening
of the gods", a symbol of the coming gloomy modern times. Still the Gothic kings were
called âmals - the "pure ones" or "celestials" - and as their origin they praised the
symbolic Mitgard, the "land of the middle", which was located in the extreme north, as
well as the hyperboreis of the sunny Apollo and the Iranian airyanem-vaêjê. A lot of
other motives and myths of ancient Aryan origin are to be confirmed with these peoples
as a testimony of a warlike spirituality alien to any "religious" deviation.

The invasion of the "barbarians" contributed to the further disintegration of the

material structure of the Asiatic empire, but at the same time it meant the galvanizing
contact with a force still preserving itself in its pure state. This force called for struggle
precisely under the sign of romanitas and imperium, i.e. the signs of that greatness to
which the ancient world owed its adaptation to the type of male-solar spirituality. The
Christian "conversion" of the "invaders" left their ethos almost untouched for a long
time. Their own inner tradition, taking up the ancient symbol of Rome, confronted the
usurpation and the hegemonistic claim of the churches and strove for the formation of a
new European culture. As is well known, the coronation of the Frankish king, which took
place on the ancient birthday of the invincible sun god (natalis solis invicti), already bore
the formula: Renovatio Romani Imperii.

37
Similar things thus call up similar things. The Uranian eagle of Odin flies towards the
eagle of the legions and the Capitoline god of light. Old spirit appears in new forms. A
great formative and unifying current breaks out. On the one hand, the Church allows
itself to be alienated in order to be able to preserve itself on the crest of the wave: it
"romanticizes" its Christianity; on the other hand, it resists, it wants to eliminate the
new reality, to subordinate itself to the Empire. But one thing must be clearly stated: If
the Middle Ages appear to us as a great culture, traditional in the higher sense, it is not
because of, but in spite of Christianity and by virtue of the Nordic ferment.

The Pagan Ethos of the Feudal System

The chivalrous feudal system, the feudal system, is the characteristic feature of
medieval society. It is directly rooted in the Nordic-Arian, based on the two principles of
free personality and martial loyalty; nothing is so foreign to it as the Semitic-Christian
pathos of "socialism" and the community of love. Here the individual precedes the
group. The highest value, the true standard of nobility, was already in the old Norse
tradition - as in the primal Roman - being free. Distance, personality, individuality were
inseparable elements of every expression of life. The state was - as in the aristocratic-
ancient Roman conception - synonymous with a council of chiefs, of freemen, each of
whom was absolute master of his land, pater, leader and priest of his clan - gens. Above
the council the state was enthroned as a super-political idea embodied in the king, since
the latter - in the Old Norse tradition - was king only because of his "divine" blood, his
appearance fashioned as an avatar of Odin-Wotan himself.

However, in the face of a common warlike goal of conquest or defense, another

relationship emerged: a clear hierarchy with the principle of loyalty and warlike
discipline. A leader - dux, heritigo - was elected, and now the free lord turned into the
follower of the chief. As soon as the enterprise was finished, however, the normal
original relationship of independence and free individuality was restored.

The process that leads from such Uranian constitution to the medieval feudal system can be
essentially characterized by the equation of the sacral idea of the king with the military idea
of the temporary leader. The king becomes the embodiment of group unity even in
peacetime. This was made possible by the reinforcement and extension of the martial
principle of loyalty or fides to the sphere of civic life as well. Around the king a following of
"comrades" - fideles or leudes - is formed, who probably always felt free, but who saw in the
ideal of loyalty, of service to their prince, of fighting for his honor and glory something like a
prerogative and a higher form of life than the merely individual one.

The feudal constitution comes into being with the progressive application of such a
principle. To it corresponds essentially the general idea of a direct organizational law,
which left the greatest scope to the dynamics of the various forces. Powers

38
subjects to lords and lords to masters, so that everything - fate, freedom, honor, glory,
property - was based on individual value, nothing or almost nothing on an informal
collective or on a "public" power. Even the king was exposed to the lot of losing and
regaining at any moment the quality which had just made him king. Never was man
treated so harshly: nevertheless, this regime was a school not of servilism but of
independence and manliness, and under it the relations of loyalty and honor reached a
degree of unconditionality and purity never again attained.

Now we need not spend many words on pointing out how little this constitution, highly
characteristic of the medieval spirit, can find its counterpart in the Christian-Semitic
ideal of love. That fides is found, long before it appears as "German loyalty", already in
one of the oldest Roman cults and let Livius say that the fides cheracterizes the Roman
in relation to the barbarian. In fact, the Aryan-Indian bhakti ideal had the same sense, as
well as the ethos determining the Iranian society. In such society, even at the level of
initiation, e.g. in Mithraism, the masculine virtues had higher value than pity and
mildness, whereby the brotherhood in such a created society - as among the medieval
"equals" and "freemen" - was the sincere, clear, hard individualized brotherhood that
can exist only among warriors united by a common enterprise.

The Secret Imperial Tradition

The fides, the loyalty as binding means of the individual feudal unity, led in a kind of
transfiguration into the supra-temporal to a higher loyalty, which carried the
determination of a supra-political, ecumenical kingdom unity in itself. Like the church
the empire claimed supernatural origin and final purpose together with the meaning of
a way of salvation for mankind. But since two suns cannot exist in the same planetary
system and the duality church-empire was understood exactly according to the parable
of the two suns, so the conflict of the two tops of the great feudal unity order had to
start soon.

But the one who only holds on to his outer political-hegemonistic appearance does not
do justice to the sense of such a contradiction. The "religious" ecclesiastical universal
idea is opposed by the imperial one as a secret tendency to restore the unity of the two
powers, the royal and the spiritual, the sacral and the masculine-knightly. Even if the
imperial idea in its expressions often limited itself to advocating only the rule over the
body and order of the Christian peoples, there remains in its basis the pagan Nordic-
Aryan idea of the "divine kingship". This idea, originally carried by the "barbarians",
overcomes the limit of a particular race when it comes into contact with the symholen
of ancient Romanism; it becomes universal, sets itself opposite the church as a more
genuine soul, unifying and transfiguring center for the warlike-feudal structure.

39
Even the ideology peculiar to the Church as the adversary of the Empire confirms this
view. The Gregorian doctrine is typically anti-traditional: dualism of powers, primacy of
an unmanly spirituality over a warlike masculinity repressed in Semitic fashion to the
merely material level. The priest as sovereign above the leader of a state conceived
merely as a political power. The king - a "layman" who owes his authority only to
"natural law" and whose empire means only a fief - beneficium - graciously given to him
by the priestly caste.

Of course, such a claim must be considered a modern aberration. Even leaving aside
what was inherent in every great pre-Christian tradition: even under the "converted"
Byzantine Empire, the church remained an institution dependent on the state. The
consecration of kings in later times could hardly be distinguished in essence from the
priestly one. But if the kings and emperors, even in the Frankish age, undertook to
"defend" the Church, this did not at all have the meaning of submission to the clergy. To
"defend" the church meant to grant it protection and at the same time to exercise
authority. What was called defense was a true contract by which the protected
recognized himself as dependent on the defender and took upon himself all the duties
that the language of that time summarized in the word fides. According to the testimony
of Eginhard, "after the acclamation, the Pope threw himself before Charlemagne,
according to the rite prevailing in the time of the ancient emperors". The same
Charlemagne claimed not only the "defense" of the Church, but also the right and
authority to "strengthen her inwardly in the true faith." Equally significant are the
declarations that royal blood is sacred and that kingship itself is a priesthood. The ruler
is equated with Melchizedek, the priest-king who is above Abraham : "Vos gens sancta
estis, atque regale estis sacerdotium"(Stephen III) - "Melkisedek noster, merito rex atque
sacerdos, complevit laicus religionis opus".

The hostile turn of the Guelphs against the empire is therefore indeed to be seen as an
uprising that resorts to the words of Gelasius I: "After Christ, no man can be king and
priest at the same time" in order to disparage the idea of empire. Here the myth by no
means falsifies history, rather it introduces us to its deeper dimension and complements
it. As can already be seen from the words reproduced above, the enigmatic symbol of
Melchizedek and his "royal religion" appears in application to the emperors already in
the Frankish period. Melchizedek, king of Salem, is the priest of a cultus superior to the
Semitic religion of Abraham, in fact he is the biblical visualization of the extra-biblical
pagan and in a higher sense "traditional" thought of the "universal ruler" (of the Aryan-
Indian Chakrawartî) or of a function which "solarly" unites the two powers in itself and
forms a living point of contact between world and super-world. In a meeting of history
and myth, reality and symbol, exactly this thought returns in numerous legends about
the Germanic emperors. According to the legend, not only Charlemagne, but also
Frederick I and II "never died". The latter had received from the mysterious "Presbyter
Johannes" (a medieval popular metaphor for the "universal ruler") the symbols of an
immortal life and a non-human power of victory (salamander skin, water of life, golden
ring). Their life should continue in a mountain (e.g. the Untersberg near Salzburg or the
Kyffhäuser in Thuringia). Thereby

40
we return to universal symbols of ancient pagan tradition. Just in a mountain or a
subterranean locality also the Uriran king Yima, "the shining one; he among the people
who is like the sun", had found shelter, and there he lived on. The Nordic-Aryan
Valhalla, the seat of the deified kings and immortal heroes, was often called a mountain
- Glitnirbjorg, Himinbjorg. According to certain Buddhist legends, the "awakened ones" -
just like many Greek "heroes" and even Alexander the Great in some legends -
disappear in a mountain - the
,,mountain of the seer". In general, the mountains, like the symbolic mountain of the
medieval sagas and fairy tales, the Indian Meru, the Islamic Kef, the Montsalvat of the
Grail legend or the Olympus itself, are only different manifestations of a single motif:
through the symbolism of the "height" they point to the transcendent spiritual states,
which within the primitive cultures were considered as the prerequisite of the authority
and unconditional supernatural function of the empire. The symbolism of the
subterranean, i.e. hidden localities - that, for example, relations between coelum and
celare were assumed is significant - expresses similar thoughts. The legend of the "never
died" emperors raptured on mountains thus proves to us that one was unconsciously
inclined to recognize in such princely figures revelations of precisely the immortal
function of the universal spiritual super-kingdom. But this function would have to
manifest itself again, according to another always recurring traditional motif (Edda,
Brahmâna, Avesta etc.), in a turning point decisive for the world history. The same idea
can be found in the medieval sagas. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire will wake
up again on the day of the unleashing of the people of Gog and Magog - a symbol of the
demonic of the mere collective - already kept closed behind a steel wall by Alexander
the Great. Then the final battle will be fought. On their success it will depend whether
the "gloomy tree" or the tree of life and the world, to be equated with the Eddic ash
Yggdrasil, whose death has meant the ragnarökkr, the twilight of the gods - will blossom
anew.

Now it is significant that some of these myths (cf. e.g. Speculum Theologiae) push their
aversion to the church so far that the resurrected emperor, who makes the gloomy tree
blossom anew, is assimilated to the Antichrist: of course not in the ordinary sense (since
he is always conceived as the destroyer of the demonic people of Gog and Magog), but
rather in the sense of the symbol of a type of spirituality that cannot be traced back to
the ecclesiastical one.

The Ghibelline ferment and the rugged struggle for imperial dignity thus had an invisible
side beyond the visible one. When the victory seemed to favor Frederick II, popular
prophecies already proclaimed: "The great cedar of Lebanon will be cut down. There will
be only one god, that is, one monarch. Woe to the clergy! When it collapses, a new
order is already ready".

The importance of chivalry

Chivalry relates to the empire as the clergy relates to the church. If the empire
embodied the attempt to reunite the two powers according to the pagan ideal, in
chivalry a similarly directed attempt is effective: it wants to reunite the two powers
according to a pagan ideal.

41
Ethos designed type of warrior, aristocrat and hero to an ascetic and even supernatural
level.

Chivalry proclaims as its ideal the hero instead of the saint, the victor instead of the
martyr; it recognizes as its standard of value loyalty and honor rather than charity and
love; cowardice and dishonor are considered worse evils than "sin. Instead of yielding to
evil and responding to evil with good, it demands punishment for the unjust and
retribution for evil with evil. It does not tolerate in its multitudes those who would
literally obey the Christian commandment "Thou shalt not kill". As a principle it
recognizes not love for the enemy, but fight with him and magnanimity only in victory.
Thus, in a world that was Christian only in name, chivalry asserted an almost
unmitigated heroic-pagan and Aryan ethic.

But not enough: a basic idea of the chivalric spirit, reaching from the field of feudal law
to the judicial and even theological, is the solution of every question by the proof of
stronger force (judgment of arms or God). If here also the strength was understood as a
virtue which God has given to the human being for the victory of the justice and truth,
so this thought is based on the mystical-pagan doctrine of the victory (cf. the Iranian
hvarenô doctrine) which overcomes every religiously coined dualism, unites spirit and
power, regards the victory as a kind of divine consecration, moves the winner to the
heaven as near as the ascetic, makes the defeated, however, the guilty.

It may be argued that chivalry recognized the authority of the Church and fought the
Crusades in defense of the Christian faith. - Above all, if the chivalric world showed
loyalty not only to the Empire but also to the Church, it must be remembered that this
was not so much a conscious acceptance of the Christian faith as a variety of the general
ideal of service and the heroic subordination of life and fortune to a supra-personal.
Through the Crusades, in fact, the old ideal of the "holy war" as a manly way to
overcome death comes to new life: an ideal that is not only peculiar to Christianity, but
rather to the Iranian tradition as well as to the Indian Bhagavad-Gîtâ, even to the Koran,
as well as to the classical insights about the mors triumphalis. Even if it was fought for
the liberation of the country where Jesus died - it remains that the crusades originate
mainly from the spirit of those world views which were allowed to confess: "The blood
of the heroes is closer to God than the prayers of the pious and the ink of the wise" and
which worshipped as heavenly ideal the Valhalla, the home of the heroes, and as seat of
the immortals the "hero island" of the blond Radamantys. On the other hand, the
crusades have little in common with that tradition which is echoed in the saying of
Augustine: "He who can think of war and endure it without the heaviest pain has lost
human feeling". There is also silence here from the martyrs of the Theban Legion and
the drastic statements of Tertullian about the evangelical saying: "He who seizes the
sword will perish by the sword" and the command of Christ to Peter to sheathe his
sword again.

In the Crusades, the old spiritual masculinity triumphs under the Christian mantle - the
sacred and pious is again replaced by the sacral warrior. Sacral warrior is the

42
Type of knight in the great medieval orders. From this point of view, of course, the
Templar Order is one of the most characteristic. Equally characteristic, however, is the
savage destruction of this order by the Church in alliance with a king like Philip the Fair,
hostile to the nobility and already close to the Laic modern type. Among other things,
the accusation was brought against the Templars that as an introductory stage of their
initiation, the neophyte had to repudiate the symbol of the cross and declare that Jesus
was a false prophet and that his teachings did not lead to salvation. Furthermore, the
Templars would have celebrated abominable rites, in which, among other things,
newborns were burned. These were confessions extracted by means of torture, which
were maliciously interpreted as sacrilege. In all likelihood, the repulsion of the cross
meant the liberation from a lower form of religion in the name of a higher one. In the
infamous newborn burning rites, it is probably the "baptism of fire" of the reborn. The
symbol can be compared with that of the salamander, who, like the immortal phoenix,
revives in the fire of the heroic rebirth, and whose skin we find as one of the "signs" that
Frederick II is said to have received from the "presbyter John".

On the other hand, the symbolism of the temple is not to be evaluated as a mere
synonym of the church. The temple stands above the church - the churches pass away,
the temple remains as a symbol of the kinship existing between all great traditions.
From this point of view, in our opinion, even the great universal crusade movement to
Jerusalem, to the Temple, is not without a secret background. Already the
predominantly Ghibelline character of this movement and the role played in it by the
Albigenses and the Templars themselves should awaken in us doubts. In fact, often
inherent in the movement to Jerusalem was an occult movement against Rome, which
itself unconsciously challenged Rome, and whose militia was chivalry; it was to achieve
its goals through an emperor whom Gregory IX saw as "the one who threatens to
replace the Christian faith with the ancient rites proper to pagan peoples and who
usurps the functions of the priesthood by sitting in the temple."

Gottfried von Bouillon - this most significant role model for the crusading chivalry, called
lux monarchorum - is, after all, that prince who ascends the throne of Jerusalem, after
he had dwelt with iron and fire in Rome, killed the counter-emperor Rudolf von
Rheinfelden and threw the pope out of the Caesarian city. The legend further creates
meaningful "kinship" between this Crusader King and the mythical Swan Knight, which
in turn points us to pagan-imperial symbols (through Helias' legendary descent from
Caesar himself), as well as to solar and pagan-Hyperborean symbols: the swan, which
Helias- Lohengrin derives from the celestial seat, is also the emblematic animal of the
Hyperborean Apollo and a sign that often recurs in the paleographic traces of the
Nordic-Arctic cult) - In such a context, then, Gottfried von Bouillon appears in
connection with the Crusades as a new symbol of that secret power, which in the
political struggle of the Teutonic emperors and even in the victory of one Otto I. only
made an outward appearance.

43
The Grail and "the woman

The temple is at the center of chivalry, not only as the temple of Jerusalem, but also as
the "temple of the Grail". The Grail corresponds in many respects to the esoteric side of
chivalry. According to the Christian version of this legend, after the Holy Communion the
Grail - the mystical vessel endowed with its own luminosity, which extinguishes all need
for earthly food and confers eternal youth - was carried off to heaven by the angels. It
descended to earth again when a heroic race appeared, capable of guarding it. The head
of this dynasty had a temple built for the Grail; he founded the Order of the Grail, made
up of twelve "perfect" or "heavenly" knights. The search for this mystical sanctuary
formed the highest ideal of knighthood and is in many ways synonymous with the
search for a spiritual tradition lost in the course of time or returned to the realm of the
invisible (disappearance of the Grail into the heavens). Now, if this tradition were
equivalent to the priestly one of the Church, how could one explain the idea that the
Grail has disappeared? And how, that the return of the Grail to an earthly temple is
bound to a new generation not of priests, but of heroes and knights? Here again we are
confronted with an indication of a spirituality which is different from the ecclesiastical
one and for which the ecclesiastical tradition is no support.

On the other hand, the Grail legend is only the Christian adaptation of extra-Christian
pagan motifs. For example, the two mystical objects of the Grail legend - chalice and
spear - can be found among those objects that the "divine race" of the Tuatha dé
Dannan (probably the Cro-Magnon) carried with them from Avalon to Ireland. To the
island of Avalon - "where there is no dying" - King Arthur returns. According to some
legends, however, King Arthur himself would be the creator of the Grail Knighthood. The
description of the castle, in which, according to ancient Gaelic tradition, he guards an
ambrosia-giving vessel corresponding to the Grail, coincides with the image of the
symbolic seat of the "universal ruler", with the palace of "Presbyter John", the Eddic
Asgard, seat of the Aesir and original Nordic kings, as well as with numerous other
allegorical allegories of the "place" of the supreme authority ruling the two powers.
Even before it became the chalice used by Jesus in the Last Supper, the Grail was
prefigured as that magical vessel given to Matholwch by Brân, Lly's son. This vessel had
the power to resurrect the "dead" and heal any wound. Many other vessels of this
miraculous kind are often mentioned in the Celtic sagas, and it is said that they do not
deny the sacred nourishment to the "sinner", but - typical of the Aryan spirit - only to
the coward and the oath-breaker.

All this points to backgrounds, to the mysteries of chivalry. If the ignorance of a certain
academic scholarship has hardly drawn attention to it, Aroux, Rossetti and Luigi Valli
have paved the way for further discoveries. In the texts, stories and poems of chivalry
up to Dante and the "Faithful of Love" ("Fedeli d'Amore"), these scholars have
demonstrated the existence of a ciphered allegorical idiom, with the help of which not
only a doctrine transcending the bounds of the Christian faith, but also a determined,
sometimes fierce aversion to the Church became the

44
expression. In this context and as a conclusion, some short reflections on the chivalric
symbolism of the "woman" shall find place here.

As is known, the cult of the "woman" is very characteristic of chivalry, which was carried
to such an extent that, if understood in a literal sense, it could only be judged as an
aberration. To pledge oneself to a "woman", to swear unconditional loyalty to her, to
seek glory and heroic death in her name, these were leitmotifs at the knightly courts.
The "woman" was left to decide on the courage and honor of the knights. According to
the "theology" practiced at the castles, there is no doubt that the knight who died for
his "wife" was destined to the same blissful immortality as the crusader who fell for the
liberation of the temple. Strange and downright offensive to bourgeois eyes: the
knight's "wife" had to undress the neophyte and accompany him to the bath in
preparation for his "watch at arms" and knighthood. On the other hand, figures such as
Tristan and Lancelot are at the same time knights of King Arthur on the Grail quest, i.e.
members of the same mystical order to which Parzival and the "heavenly" knight such
as the hyperborean swan knight, who finally rejects Elsa, also belong.

In all this a higher meaning may be seen. Since this content was intended neither for the
inquisition judges nor for other ignorant people, it was expressed by the symbolism of
strange customs and erotic tales. In connection with a well-determined pagan-
traditional symbolism, in many cases the same interpretation is in fact applied to the
"woman" of ancient chivalry as is applied to the woman in the "Fedeli d'Amore". The
woman to whom unconditional fidelity is promised and to whom the knight consecrates
himself by participating in the Crusades; the woman who accompanies to the purifying
ritual bath, who is considered by the knight as a prize and who confers immortality on
him if he dies for her - such a woman is ultimately not a physical woman, but rather a
symbol that from a certain point of view is equivalent even to that of the Grail. As Luigi
Valli has shown documentarily in reference to the "Fedeli d'Amore" literature, the
"woman" means the "intelligence" conceived in a transcendent sense, the "sacred
wisdom", that is, the personification of a transfiguring spirituality and of a life no longer
mixed with death. She is, so to speak, an avatar of Hebe, the continuing youth, who in
the Olympic seat becomes the bride of the hero Heracles, the "beautiful victor"; of
Athena, sprouted from the divine head, whom this Doric hero himself had chosen as his
leader; of the Eddic goddess of light Freya, the object of the continuing greed of the
telluric, resp. elemental beings who strive in vain to attain her; of Sigrdrifa- Brynhilt,
whom Wodan destines to be the earthly bride of a hero who will overcome the firewall
(here we may recall the symbolism of the Templar baptism of fire); of the Gnostic virgin
Sophia and of all those goddesses who appear in numerous Eastern and Western myths
in connection with the tree of life and the world, and who represent the elemental force
of life, hence also power (cf. the double meaning of the Sanskrit term cakti, which
means both "bride" and "power").

However, these symbolizations do not simply reveal a religious longing hidden behind
the veil of female-erotic symbolism. Since in Christianity a religious doctrine of rebirth
was not considered heretical, the knighthood and the

45
In the case of the "Fedeli d'Amore" such a disguise would have been completely
superfluous and inexplicable, if the speech had not been meant for another. It had to be
about views that were linked to the great spiritual traditions of Aryan paganism. In
these traditions, in fact, the pathos of sin and redemption, the horrors of the afterlife
and the consolation of the Savior were unknown. In place of the democratic truth, by
virtue of which every mortal is given an immortal soul, they taught a twofold way, a
twofold possibility, a twofold destiny: on the one hand, the way of the ancestors and
earthly demons, Hades, the frozen Niflheim, the waters of dissolution and oblivion - on
the other hand, the luminous way of the gods - devayâna and heroes, the Olympian
land of the immortals, Valhalla, the waters of awakening, the avest sunlike "sleepless
life".

At the height of medieval society, the pagan idea of a supreme "solar" authority was
revived by the ideal of empire. The temple and Grail symbolism was Christian clothing of
a super-religious heroic thought. Through the crusades and the "weapons" or God's
judgment, the old doctrines of mors triumphalis and "victory" are called to new efficacy.
In such a context it is highly probable that behind the symbolism of the "woman",
especially in her relation to the Grail legends, a pagan initiation doctrine was hidden,
thus: no religious evasion and no servilism towards the divine; assertion of the "sunny"
attitude, according to which, in contrast to the spiritual masculinity of the initiate, the
principle of wisdom itself, of immortal life and power, to which the knight consecrates
himself and to which he remains "faithful" until death, bears feminine characteristics.

It is interesting to note, however, that in a tradition that appeared later and

meaningfully bore the name Ars Regia, Royal Art, a synonymous doctrine and
symbolism emerged. With the even more impenetrable expressions of the hermetic-
alchemical writing, the esoteric doctrines of the ancient Egyptian "divine kingship" were
resumed and the "myth" of the "immortal independent generations of kingless ones"
was fashioned, of the "bridegrooms of women", of the "rulers of the two powers raised
to the solar dignity." -

In the present essay, we have been able to use only a few elements from the wide-
ranging, documentary area to prove our theses. Every great historical age consists of a
foreground and a background. Only in the latter is to be found the true sense of the
forms which appear in the former. The ordinary history considers only the forms of the
surface. Likewise, the psychology of yesterday adhered to the limited world of forms of
the external consciousness, without suspecting the determining background of the
preconscious. In our time burdened with positivistic ignorance, a historical method
directed essentially to the background of cultures is still scarcely available. Having
applied such a method to the Middle Ages, we have been able to find confirmed as the
true meaning of this culture something that does not coincide with the convictions of
those who longingly want to see in such a period a kind of golden age of the Catholic
tradition, the most complete realization of the Christian ideal. In the medieval
ecumenism, we have seen the preponderance of forces which are quite

46
The first one is the one of the forces that kept the pagan-Aryan spirituality untamed
until the last one, in its connection with that glorious symbol that made Dante, the great
Ghibelline, say: "Christ himself was a Roman".

47
6 The swastika as a polar symbol
From: Hochschule und Ausland, 1934/35

The following reflections which we make on the higher meaning of the swastika would
seem somewhat strange if the researches of Herman Wirth on the Ur-Nordic races were
not already known in Germany. Something, however, which deserves to be emphasized
more than it has been done so far, is the fact that the thoughts expressed in this regard,
in what is of actual validity in them, do not represent merely the conjectures of a
modern researcher. Rather, they can be linked to a doctrine which, even if its traces are
scattered, is nevertheless found with the characteristics of universality and unanimity in
all the great traditions of the past: from the Far Eastern, Tibetan, Indo-Aryan and Iranian
to the Hellenic, Egyptian, Gaelic, Germanic and Aztec. And for us it is certain that these
traditions, if they were taken over once directly, beyond the "positive" limitations,
would be able to tell us more than many doubtful reconstructions on philological and
paleographic basis.

The first thing that arises from this circle of ideas is the integration of the concept of the
Aryan or Indo-Germanic or Nordic race. What until yesterday was called by this name
and believed to be an original tribe, is revealed to be a special and relatively new branch
of a much older and purer race of Arctic origin, which might more properly be called by
the old name of a Hyperborean race. Such an integration removes many of the one-
sidednesses and difficulties inherent in previous accounts of the Aryan thesis. The Aryan
thought here rises in truth to a universal thought, establishing a principle of perpetuity
and common origin of elements of culture which were at first supposed to be separate,
and which are actually found scattered in the Orient as well as in the Occident, in the
North as well as in the South. In particular, the swastika symbol appears in a new light.
One knows about the difficulties, which the thought of an Ernst Kraus or Ludwig Mueller
encountered, according to which this symbol would have been peculiar in the old times
only to the Indo-Germanic tribes. Already in 1896 the American Thomas Wilson, and
later the Italian Alberto Mosso, worked out a map from which it is clear that the
swastika is also found in places which, like California, Central America, the Far East,
Mesopotamia, North Africa, etc., can certainly not be regarded as the native seats of the
Indo-European race. In relation to the Nordic primitive race, however, this difficulty
diminishes. If one unites the directions, which are described by Wirth as the indirect or
direct emanations of the Nordic race as a leader race, with what further emerges from
the testimonies, which the old traditions can offer us, then we are very well able to
explain the spreading of the swastika symbol in the world - also beyond the domains of
the Indo-Germanic races, insofar as then these races would be in each case only one of
the emanations of the Nordic primal race.

48
Secondly, the solar, the sunlike character, which is characteristic of the Nordic primitive
culture, has to be noted. This can be seen directly from the concordant testimonies
which the traditions of the ancient peoples offer us concerning the Arctic original
homeland. The hyperborean land of the Iranian Aryans, airyanem waêjô, is understood
allegorically in the Avesta as the home both of the sunlike "glory" and of the Yima, the
"radiant, glorious one, the one who among men resembles the sun". Çweta-dwîpa or
uttara-kuru, the sacred land of the extreme north, is conceived by the Indo-Aryans as
the "white island" or "island of splendor," as the home of Narâyâna, "in which burns a
great fire that radiates on all sides." The Hellenic land of the Hyperboreans is again
linked with the sunny and radiant Apollo. From Thule, which merges with him, it will be
said: "a sol e nomen habens" (from the sun god Sol it has the name). The Aztec Tullan or
Tlallocan (which also corresponds etymologically to the Hellenic Thule) merges with the
"House of the Sun". Gimle or Gladsheim, in the primordial home of Asgard, is called in
the Edda eternal, golden and radiant as the sun. The same is true of the mysterious
"north of the Norse sea" and inhabited by "transcendent people" recalled in the lore of
the Far East, and of the mystical Chambhala, the "Norse city" of the pre-Buddhist
Tibetan lore of the Bon. And so it could be continued.

Now this is a symbolic testimony which can be traced back to two elements: to the idea
of a sun-cult and to the idea of a sunlike rule. As to the first point, we know that Wirth's
reconstruction tends to give to the Nordic-Atlantean primitive races precisely a common
religion of the solar type. If such an assumption is traditionally quite within the range of
probability, it nevertheless requires a more precise justification, to which we shall point.
In the meantime, we note the following: that between the sun and the divine fire there
has always existed an intimate relationship, which, by the way, is easily readable from
the Indo-European traces. The cult of fire was linked both to the Uranian and "solar"
component of the patrician rite in traditional antiquity (see in J.J. Bachofen), and to the
notion of solar and "divine" kingship itself, viz. the function which in the various cultures
the original leader-race was able to embody in a high degree: the Iranian-Aryan "glory",
hvarenô, which makes the kings (equal to the agni- rohita, the Vedic fire as "conquering
royal power", and the fire-fluidum "life-force", ânshûs, of the Egyptian kingship), is a
solar fire. But here we have the first and simplest authentication of the swastika sign as
a Nordic symbol. In fact, it is common knowledge that the swastika, in its special
relationship to the ancient swastika, has often been considered both a fire symbol and a
sun symbol. One has only to go beyond the "naturalistic" reduction of such terms. An
immovable point for any serious research must be that ancient man did not
superstitiously "deify" the forces of nature, but rather used them as symbols to express
higher meanings. The "naturalistic" character of certain symbols receives its right sense
only from the premise that the true symbolism, far from being arbitrary and
"subjective", refers to those sides of nature according to which it presents itself as a
great symbol. Now one must forget that to all peoples the flame always appeared as a
divine revelation; forget that among the ancient Aryans a precise sacred ritual of the

49
The swastika as a symbol of fire is only a naturalistic transformation of the primitive tool
that was used by certain peoples to ignite the flame. The swastika joins the begetting
principle of fire and light, but in a higher sense: in the spiritual and, we may say, in the
royal sense. In the highest sense it can call itself the mysterious seal of the primordial
light and fire, which have come to work and ignite in the ruling castes, in a solar function
over the inferior forces and races.

Here the moment has come to pass to the main point of our considerations, precisely in
relation to the swastika not only as a fire symbol, but also as a polar symbol. From the
most diverse testimonies it appears that the solar function embodied by the leaders of
the great tradition-rooted cultures was compared to that of a pole. The leader
represented the constancy, the immovable point, around which the ordered movement
of the forces takes place, which circle him hierarchically graded as rex (rex from regere).
Here it is about the deeper meaning of the Far Eastern term: "immutability in the
middle", to be connected with the words of Confucius: "The one who rules by means of
virtue (virtus) (the celestial one, born of immutability in the middle) is like the polar star.
He stands firmly on his place, but all the stars revolve around him". Incidentally, the
Aristotelian concept of the "immovable mover" is a theological translation of the same
conception - to be found again in the designation expressing in Sanskrit the function of
the "lord of the world", the cakrawartî. Cakravartî means "the one who makes the
wheel turn", the wheel of the regnum, in that he appears as the immovable point, the
"pole", which forms the center and support for its regulated movement. In a deeper
sense, however, there is also a relationship here to what might be called Olympic
superiority. The "polar" symbol is that of an irresistible force in its serene superiority, of
a perfectly controlled power from above, which legitimizes itself, as it were, by its very
presence; which brings about the unmediated and threatening experience of something
transcendent: an appearance of the permanence of the "world of being" or superworld,
which was often itself represented by a fire symbol. And this is also the meaning of the
sun symbol embodied by the Hyperborean god Apollo: for this, as Phoibos, is not the
rising and setting sun, but the sun as a calm and evenly reigning light: equal to that light
itself which surrounds the very Olympians and the pure spiritual substances dissolved by
the world of passion and becoming. As in the function of the sunny ruler, beginning with
the symbolic Hyperborean king Yima, so also in the circle of the great Nordic-Aryan
deities of the day, of the luminous sky and of the light this very theme is reflected,
traces of an Olympian primordial spirituality are indeed found.

Now, one of the oldest symbols of this spirituality and also of the polar function into
which it translates itself in relation to a given hierarchical system, apart from the circle
with the center, which was already traced giantly by the menhirs, is precisely the "cross
of the glacier", the swastika. In fact, the swastika is not only a symbol of the movement,
as some pretend, but, as already Guénon has pointed out,

50
the symbol of a circular movement which takes place around an invariable center or
axis: and the fixed point is the basic element to which the symbol in question refers.
And if the swastika is also a symbol of the sun (the wheel of the sunlike Vishnu), it is
always related to this idea, that is, it is not the mere "revolution" of the sun, but the
solar principle, traced back to a dominant central, an unchanging Olympian element. In
this sense the swastika is a polar symbol, which already in the oldest prehistory revealed
those meanings which it was to express in the shining cycles of the Aryan mythologies
and kingdoms coming from the Nordic primitive culture.

One step further one makes with the statement that the polar symbol could also be
referred to certain cultures or cultural centers if these embodied a function
corresponding to it in the totality of the history. Thus the Chinese Empire was called the
"Middle Kingdom". Meru, the symbolic Indo-Aryan Olympus, was considered as the pole
of the Earth; the symbolism of Omphalos, which came to refer to the traditional center
of the Doric-Olympic Hellas, to Delphi, leads us back to the same meaning; the Eddic
Asgard, conceived as the mystical ancestral home of the Nordic royal families, coincided
with Midgard, which means the seat or land of the center. Even the name Cuzco, the
center of the solar empire of the Incas, seems to express like Omphalos the thought of a
"center" of the earth. On the other hand, it has been pointed out by some that Tulâ (to
be associated with the Hellenic or also American name of the homeland of the
Hyperboreans) means "Libra" in Sanskrit and that in particular the sign of the zodiac
bears this name: but according to a Chinese tradition, the celestial scale was initially the
Great Bear, and this observation - apart from the fact that the Bear is a signifying figure
in the cult of Hyperborean origin - is of the utmost importance, because the symbolism
that joins the Great Bear is naturally closely tied to that of the Pole, which the Swastika
likewise contains.

The thought taken up again today by Wirth is that the original homeland of the white
race, the progenitor of the Indo-Germanic and Aryan races, was the Arctic region, i.e.
the polar region; and this in a period of time which precedes that known glaciation
caused by the inclination of the earth axis and the variation of the aequinoxes. And here
a suggestive and highly significant thought has its root: namely that of a meeting of
symbol and reality, of metaphysics and physics, just under the sign of the pole. We
would like to say that the prehistoric polar cycle of the Nordic primal race could be
regarded as the primal expression of the Olympian spirituality itself and of the polar
function itself, which then came into effect wherever it led, by adaptation or radiation,
to new cultures and new traditions, different in form but uniform in spirit. The symbol
of the "center" and of the pole can be, from this point of view, a kind of traditional and
supra-historical sign of recognition, originally adhering to a complete correspondence of
reality and symbol, with regard to a homeland that falls on the geographic pole of the
earth and at the same time has the value and function of a spiritual primordial pole.

51
We are merely setting this thought apart. In order to justify it fully, we would have to
enter here into a field of considerations so vast that we have had to devote to it a large
part of a special work. But we cannot pass over a fundamental point, regarding the
swastika as a Nordic and polar symbol.

In our opinion, Wirth has fallen into the error of letting extend to the entire Nordic
tradition a cult which in truth adheres to an already adulterated and fatigued form of it.
As one knows, he pays special attention to the winter solstice and thinks that the
perpetual alternation of death and resurrection of the sun as a yearly god - on the
background of an unchanging principle (earth, water, mother, snake, house, etc.)
represented predominantly in female form - is the secret of the Urnordic faith. Here the
sun appears as a nature that has rise and fall, death and resurrection, in short: Genesis
and Passion. Immortal and unchangeable for him is rather the mother, the source of life,
in which the sun-god dies and rises annually. Now one has only to adhere to what
Bachofen has already convincingly expounded in his researches on Mediterranean
mythology, in order to give an account of the rather un-Nordic and sunlike character of
such a conception, which in reality adheres to the chthonic cycle of the southern, pre-
Aryan, and later even Semitic maternal law - the cycle of the great Asiatic goddesses of
fertility. Recently Alfred Rosenberg had to point out just this strange confusion of ideas,
which in Wirth's case is certainly to be attributed to the circumstance that the
testimonies belonging to the oldest epochs, i.e. to the Nordic cycle, are often found
mixed with those belonging to later and already mixed ages and cultures. While Wirth
correctly distinguishes a Nordic-Arctic (Hyperborean) race from a Nordic-Atlantean one,
he has failed to make a corresponding distinction with regard to symbols and motifs - he
adheres in this respect to both the one and the other. Already according to the
testimony of the Avesta, Mô-uru, i.e. the land and culture of the "mother", appears only
as the third of the "creations", that is, as a cycle already distant from the Nordic one of
airyanem waêjô.

If in the cycle of the year the precedence of the winter solstice is related to the polar
symbolism (north-south), while that of the aequinoxes is bound to the direction of the
geographical longitude (east-west) - nevertheless the theme of the passion, the death
and the resurrection of the sun-god in the mother, in short, the theme of a becoming
and eternal change carried into the world of the gods is essentially an anti-Olympic
theme, inaccessible to the higher Nordic-Aryan spirituality. It is a theme to be attributed
to the influences of the south and basically means: Dionysus against Apollo, Loki against
the Aesir, the confused desire of earthly beings for a pantheistic ecstasy versus the calm
self-consciousness and natural supernaturalism of the divine races. What Wirth tells us
can consequently be understood as a syncretic symbolism, already far from the pure
Urarian cult and perhaps more correctly related to the subsequent Atlantean culture,
since we do indeed find numerous traces of a gynecocratic theme in the Atlantean
testimonies.

52
The polar cross, the swastika, on the other hand, is the symbol of the primordial vision
not yet falsified by such mixtures; consequently, it can be considered to us as a true
Nordic sign in the higher sense. And that is because, as we have already said, the basic
theme of this symbol is not the change, but a center effect to which it remains assigned.
On such a basis also the sun and fire symbols, which the swastika likewise contains,
attain a quite different meaning, which directly enters into connection with the
distinctly Uranian special character of the Aryan and Aryan-Hyperborean deities and
cults, with the patrician system of the strict father right, with all that in spirit as well as
in ethos and mores is synonymous with masculinity, true rule, order and cosmos
triumphing over chaos.

In such a context of ideas, the swastika could actually lead us to a content of the Nordic
thought, to a content that can be called classical and Doric in a higher sense, in relation
to this style of centrality, of inner Olympian superiority, of clarity in the bosom of every
"fire" and of every release of forces. According to an ancient tradition, those who are
predestined to rule are said to have the vision of a celestial wheel: like a wheel,
overturning and conquering, the one thus drawn acts. But at the same time the wheel
embodied "rita", i.e. the order, the spiritual Aryan law, represented as a divine chariot in
motion. The connection of these two concepts gives the basic idea of the moving
swastika itself: whirling and victorious wheel, generating fire and light, but with a
consolidated rest, an unchanging steady constancy in the center.

When the Nordic homeland disappeared in the distance of the times, the memory of it
changed from the history to the supra-history, with which it took the meaning of a
softening reality, attainable no more on external ways, but only by the spiritual act. And
thus already Pindar says that the way of the Hyperboreans can be found neither by
water nor by land, but opens itself only to the heroes who remain faithful like Heracles
to the Olympic principle; thus Li-tse reports that one can penetrate into the mysterious
area of the extreme north "neither with the ship nor with the carriage, but reaches it
only with the flight of the spirit"; thus it is said of Chambhala, the Hyperborean
homeland of the Tibetan tradition, likewise: "it is in my spirit".

Perhaps nothing better than the sign of the swastika can point to this inner path, namely
the path to bring about a resurrection of the new deep-intimate forces of Germany from
the summit of the Nordic tradition also today. In truth, already in the Indo-Aryan
equivalent of the swastika, the swastika, is the good foreshadowing. Swastika can
actually be interpreted as the monogram composed of the letters forming the
congratulatory formula su-asti, equivalent to the Latin "bene est" or "quod bonum
faustumque sit". "What is good and happy, let it be!" No better symbol could have been
found to express the rebirth certainty and the will of validity of one of the great
hereditary races of the hyperborean primordial rulers against the dark forces of
darkness that were about to overwhelm them.

53
7 Feminism and heroic tradition
From: Der Ring, June 6, 1933

Starting from the premise that as perfection the qualitative and differentiated is to be
regarded, as imperfection the quantitative and formless, already from certain side the
proof was tried to ascribe to the much praised occidental culture the meaning not of an
evolution, but of a decline, an involution.

Today, various tragic events have finally disabused most of us of the myths of cheap
optimism, so that we are able to feel the truth of this apparent paradox. For centuries,
the Western world has been undergoing a terrible process of leveling. Its political
manifestations - from liberalism and democratism over to the Bolshevik mass man
culture - are only particular and already external phenomena. Not only are the
distinctions of caste and inner dignity, to which our ancient traditions owe their
greatness, undermined today: a like process of regression sets as an ideal for the future,
after accomplished leveling between man and man, also the leveling between sex and
sex. From the same anti-aristocratic and anti-hierarchical striving observable in so many
decaying phenomena of the modern world, the feminist phenomenon is forming, but its
most acute expression is to be found in the two countries which, like the two scissors of
a single pincer, close around our Europe from East and West: Russia and America. The
Bolshevik equality of woman to man in every social, legal and political respect finds, in
fact, complete correspondence in the emancipation that woman had already attained
on the other side of the ocean through feminism.

A comparison will help us. In order to make clear to us the deviousness inherent in such
modern turns and, at the same time, to determine the values which could lead back to
normality, we shall briefly refer to the outlook on life which was common to all the
great Aryan cultures, especially to the classical, Greco-Roman and Nordic-Roman
worlds.

The cult of form - of form as a law of order and distinction - was the center of such a
conception of life. The world is cosmos and not chaos, inasmuch as, like a perfect
organism, it is formed out of a number of well-differentiated and indistinguishable parts
and functions. The "truth", the final aim of such parts is not to return by the dissolution
of their individuation to the state where they were still one, but: to be more and more
themselves, to express more and more precisely their own nature up to the realization
of absolute individuations, which were conceived as the prerequisite for the greatest
diversity and definiteness of the universe. On such a way also the basis for a hierarchical
order in the family, the gens, the city, and finally in the empire itself was formed, a
hierarchy which did not develop by force and oppression, but spontaneously, from the

54
Recognition of natural differences between people, genders and races emerged.

In its empirical immediacy, of course, no being is only itself. Opposite natures emerge
and conflict in it. Such a state of mixture, however, was regarded as imperfection, the
goal of ethics and even of asceticism was traditionally considered to be its overcoming
up to the setting of types which are only and completely "themselves": for instance like
living statues formed by an artist out of formless matter. Now, as far as the sexes in
particular are concerned, man and woman present themselves as two types - and he
who is born a man is to perfect himself as a man, he who is born a woman, is to perfect
himself as a woman, through and through, in the physical and in the spiritual, with
overcoming of every confusion. On the spiritual plan, too, man and woman are each to
tread their own path, which must not be left without confusion and contradiction.

In the world considered normal to us, where the freedom native to heights and that
inner boldness prevailed, without which life is a dirty affair and meaningless - but in
such a world the essential characteristic of masculinity was considered to be inner
frugality and dominion, "being in oneself," a purity formed by strength - and two great
paths were indicated for this goal: the path of action and the path of contemplation.
Thus, in the warrior or hero and in the ascetic, the two basic types of pure masculinity
were expressed. Symmetrically to such types there are two for femininity. The woman
realized as such, rises to the same level on which the man stands as warrior and ascetic,
in so far as she is lover and mother. As there is an active heroism, there is also a passive
heroism. The heroism of absolute assertion is opposed by the heroism of absolute
devotion - and the one can be as luminous as the other if it is experienced with purity,
like a ritual offering. It is precisely this duality of the heroic that determines the
difference between the paths to perfection for man and woman. The attitude of the
warrior and the ascetic, the first of which asserts itself through pure action, the other
through a masculine seclusion in a life that is beyond life - corresponds in the woman to
the heroism of momentum, whereby she gives herself completely to another, In such a
relationship she finds the higher meaning of her own life, her joy and - in the borderline
case - her salvation. The ever more resolutely guided realization of these two, separate
and distinctive directions of the heroic with elimination of all that is feminine in the man
and masculine in the woman, up to the completion of an absolute woman in relation to
an absolute man - this is the tradition-rooted, normal law for the sexes.

We hardly need to suggest in what contrast such views stand to the leveling and
humanitarian principles which in recent times have dominated morality, law, social
order, even the ideal of cognition and creation of Western man. It is on this basis that
the spirit and face of modern feminism can be understood.

55
In fact, it was inconceivable that a world that "overcame" the castes and - to express
ourselves in Jacobin jargon - "restored to every man his dignity and his rights" could
have preserved the sense of right relationship between the sexes. The "emancipation"
of women had to fatefully follow that of slaves and the glorification of status and
traditionlessness, that is, of the ancient pariah. And an abdication was taken for a
conquest.

After centuries of "enslavement", the woman wanted to become free and to exist for
herself. Feminism, however, was not able to give to woman a different personality than
the mere imitation of the male one can give. As a result, its claims are nothing but a mask
for a thorough distrust of the new woman toward herself: i.e., for her inability to be and
to be valid for what she is - as a woman and not as a man. Underlying feminism is the
premise that woman as such has no value, that she can only be valid insofar as she
becomes as much as possible a man and claims the same prerogatives. Hence feminism
is a symptom of degeneracy in the strictest sense of the word. And where tradition-
rooted ethics demanded that man and woman become more and more themselves,
expressing with ever bolder coinages that which stamps one as man, the other as
woman - there we see that the modern movements strive for leveling, for a state which
in fact lies not beyond but on this side of gender individuation and differentiation.

On the other hand: what feminism had in mind on the practical level was the
homunculus created by the banks, offices, markets and the other shining centers of
modern life. Feminism, therefore, did not find it difficult to prove that woman, too, has
more or less the same intellectual and practical dispositions that establish the right, the
autonomy and the "superiority" of the new male type that has become a shadow of
itself. Man, on the other hand, has let things take their course, and even helped them
along, has pushed woman into public life, into offices, schools, workshops, and the
other pernicious affairs of modern society and culture. This has given the final leveling
impetus.

And in a world where the boxer, cowboy and Jewish banker have taken the place of the
ascetic and warrior as the supreme masculine type, the spiritual emasculation of
modern materialized man often seems to have evoked to new life the ancient primacy
of the aphrodisiac female over the man vertified by sensuality and working for it in a
senseless way. On the other hand: the varieties of a sexual corruption and bitterness
accompanied by as much superficiality, or the degeneration of the female type even in
its physical characteristics, the atrophy of the natural possibilities of woman, the
suffocation of her inwardness. Hence the type garçonne, the masculinized, sportive girl;
empty, incapable of any impetus beyond herself, and finally incapable even of sexuality
itself: since in the modern woman the possibility not only of maternity, but even of love,
does not in the last analysis arouse such an essential interest as otherwise making
oneself beautiful, dressing oneself up in clothes - or in such a way - as a woman.

56
little clothes as possible - decorate, the physical training, dance for the sake of dance,
and so on.

Here it is easy to foresee where also in material terms the relations between the two
sexes must lead on this basis. In love, as in the magnetic and electric, the creative spark
is the greater and more lively, the more determined the polarity, i.e. the differentiation
of the sexes is: the more the man is really man and the woman really woman. In the
world of the "evolved" and "emancipated" woman there may well be the promiscuity of
an ambiguous comradeship, of pale "intellectual" sympathies, or a new banal
communist naturism: but no longer love conceived in that deep, elemental sense in
which the ancients recognized in it a cosmic elemental force.

Just as social egalitarianism has abolished the former masculine, living relations
between warrior and warrior, prince and subject, so likewise feminist egalitarianism will
lead more and more to a distastefully distorted world. The vanguard of such a world -
Russia and America - is already present and conveys to us the most significant warnings.

But everything is connected, both in the decadence and in the rebirth. When speaking
of the decadence of modern woman, it should not be forgotten that ultimately man is
responsible for such decadence. Just as the plebs could never have broken into all areas
of social and cultural life if kings and aristocrats had been truly capable of holding sword
and scepter in their hands, so in a society led by real men, women could never have and
would never have taken the path of today's feminist degeneration. Therefore, the true
reaction would have to be directed not so much against the woman as against the man.
One cannot demand that the woman become true to her nature again, as long as the
man only knows and glorifies the distorted image of himself. In spite of every outward
appearance: only in the spirit is the sex true and unconditional. The reintegration of the
modern man in the tradition-bound sense, i.e. in the sense of an aristocratic superiority,
of an ascetic and martial dignity, of a Doric-Aryan purity is equivalent to the
reintegration of the male type itself and - even if it is accomplished only in an elite -
presents itself as an indispensable condition not only for our political reconstruction,
but also for the restoration of the right relations between the sexes, the elimination of
the feminist heresy in the name of a new "heroic" style and the return of woman to her
natural possibilities of fire, light and liberating devotion.

57
8 The double antlitz of nationalism
From: Europäische Revue, 1932

It is a fact that the world war not only exhausted the process of formation of
nationalisms inside as well as outside Europe, but virtually brought it to its acute phase.
Therefore, the desire to grasp the meaning of this event is fully justified.

What is the significance of contemporary nationalism within the framework of a philosophy

of culture? We are convinced that this question demands the following solution: In modern
nationalism there are two mentally separate, even opposite, but often combined possibilities,
one of which is to be evaluated as a form of degeneration and regression, while the other
represents a path to higher values and the prelude to rebirth.

In the following essay, we will try to analyze this suggestion in all its implications.
Phenomena like nationalism can be interpreted only in the broad framework of an
overall historical picture based on critical value judgments. In such a picture, the gradual
downward slide of political power from level to level within that hierarchy of values, in
the framework of which the qualitative differentiation of human possibilities had been
completed in ancient cultures, proves to be striking. This process can be traced from the
threshold of "historical" time to our own day. In the political history of the Occident it
has its special meaning. It is the regression of the castes, as first described in our book
"Pagan Imperialism". We have found a more detailed treatment of them in the -
hitherto unpublished - expositions of the Italian deputy V. Vezzani. Finally, René Guénon
has given these ideas a systematic and definitive form in his work: "Autorité spirituelle
et pouvoir temporel" (Paris, 1929).

As is known, already the oldest traditions speak of a sense similarity of the political with
the human organism. In every higher organic form of appearance, however, four
different functions exist in hierarchical connection: at the lower boundary the still
undifferentiated, dull life forces - above them already rise the organic exchange
functions - which for their part lead into that will which moves and guides the whole
body in space; above all stands the power capacity of intellect and freedom, as it were
as center and lamp of the whole organism.

Traditions, which saw in the state a higher spiritualized living being instead of a
necessity-born contingency, demanded a similar separation and hierarchical gradation
into estates and castes. The series: formless vitality, organic exchange function, will and
spirit is reflected in the four traditional castes of servants or workers, independent
peasants, craftsmen and merchants, warriors, and holders of royal-priestly power. One
caste was built up rankwise above the others: mass man was under the control and rule
of those who were in

58
The latter, in turn, led by the authority of the warrior nobility, rallied around the one
who, in his mastered perfection, stood witness to a possibility beyond man. These
latter, in turn, led by the authority of the warrior nobility, rallied around the one who, in
his controlled perfection, stood witness, as it were, to a possibility that transcended the
human.

The ancient world of the Orient (Iran, India, Egypt) and the Far East knew such a type of
social organization, which Greece and Rome partially approached. In the political
teachings of a Plato and Aristotle it came to the revelation of related spirit, which then
finally flared up for the last time in the ecclesiastical-knightly world of the Middle Ages.

It is important to note that such an organization corresponded to a qualitative criterion

and testifies to the formation of higher forms of interests and personality. In the ancient
Orient, the higher castes were called those of the "reborn" - dwijas-, thus they formed a
spiritual elite. The warrior class and the nobility had not only a political meaning, but
also a kind of sacral status, which was also the case in the medieval chivalry. Any activity
based on work, industry, administration of the common property, and the like, was
relegated to the two lower castes, like those functions which in the human organism
serve the bodily requirements of life.

Thus the hierarchy of the four castes reflected the gradual ascent of the individuality by
devotion to higher forms of action than those of the immediate only life. In contrast to
the lowest caste, the anonymous collective, which wants nothing but "to live", the
second caste - that of the organizers of work and wealth - already represented the
beginning of a higher type, a "person". But from the third state, the heroism of the
warrior caste, the ethos of the aristocracy, arises the foreshadowing of a "more-than-
life," of a being that gives itself its law, beyond the natural, instinct-bound, collectivistic
and utilitarian drives. If in the primordial concept of the leader ascetic, king and priest
merge into a personal union, the universal and almost supernatural personality is
fulfilled in it, the consummate expression of that which in everyday man does not find
the strength to detach itself from the world of the accidental and to be "self". To the
extent, then, that the rulers, the perfected individuals, formed the axis of the whole
social organism, this organism was, as it were, a body governed by the spirit; temporal
power and spiritual authority were one; hierarchy was legitimate in the unconditional
literal sense.

So far the scheme serving us as a starting point, whose ideal-typical value is of course
independent of its time- and space-conditioned manifestations, which can more or less
reflect its sense. On such a basis, however, the continuous "decay" of power in the
historical age becomes a terrible fact for us. The era of the "holy kings" - equally ruler
and priest figures - already stands at the threshold of the "mythical" time. The peaks of
power are being removed. From their highest representatives the power descends to
the next lower level - that of the caste of the warriors. What remains is the profane ruler
type of a monarch as army commander, judge and legislator.

59
Second stage of decay: the great European monarchies decline. The aristocrats
degenerate. The attempt of the Holy Roman Empire fails. Through revolutions (England
and France) and constitutions, the kings, facing the "will of the people," become
powerless remnants. In the realm of parliamentary, republican and bourgeois
democracies, the formation of capitalist oligarchies marks the new fatal step with which
political power descends from the second to the third caste - that of the merchant.

The crisis in the bourgeois society, the advent of the "proletariat", the despotism of the
mass constituted into a purely collective, economic and international entity announce
to us the approaching end. Power comes to the last caste: those who go without name
and without countenance. Matter, metal and number become standard. The way of life
of the servants - work - becomes religion. The earth knows no more heaven.
Unconditional rule of the impersonal and mechanical.

Comparatively: Someone can no longer bear the tension of the spirit (sacral kingship) in
himself: not even that of the will - the force that moves his body (warrior state): he lets
himself sink. But then he rises again magnetically, body without soul, under the
influence of alien forces emanating from the unconscious layers of mere vitality:
Indignation of the last stand, demonia of the collective.

It is time to free ourselves from the illusion of the "myth of progress", to open our eyes
to reality. It is time to recognize the terrible fate of spiritual disruption that weighs upon
the Occident: a fate whose last fruits are ripening today.

At the core of the involutionary process described above is the shift of viewpoint from
the individual to the collective, in the closest connection with the indicated regression
of that vocation which secured the higher castes their rightful hierarchical authority to
the status interests of the lower castes.

Man is free only in an unconditional action. This is the case in the two symbols of a pure
action (heroism) and a pure knowledge (asceticism and contemplation), which can
attain their full validity by an aristocratically aligned rule. Through them, the two upper
castes opened ways for man to participate in that order of the "supramundane" in
which alone he can belong to himself and grasp the essential and universal value of
personality. If these higher interests are destroyed in the exclusive concentration on
practical and temporal goals, or if they are absorbed in economic aspirations and needs
peculiar to the lower classes, then man disintegrates and decentralizes, he surrenders
himself to powers which snatch him from himself and hand him over to the irrational
and prepersonal energies of collective life. To rise above those powers used to be
considered the fighting aim and sense of every truly higher culture.

Thus, the collective is gaining more and more predominance in the social forms of
recent times, almost going so far as to replace the totemism of primitive communities.

60
new life. Concepts such as nation, race, party, society or humanity today bear the stamp
of a mystical personhood; they demand devotion and unconditional submission from
the individual who belongs to them as a part. At the same time, in the name of
"freedom," hatred is sown against all superior and ruling personalities, who alone may
appeal to a justified and sacred right of submission and obedience on the part of the
individual. This tyranny of the group is not limited to the political and social expressions
of life of the individual: it arrogates to itself moral and spiritual rights; culture and spirit
are to cease to be objective modes of activity and ways of elevating humanity, to
become dependent organs of the world-bound collective being. Loudly proclaims a
morality that sees the meaning and value of the spirit solely in the service of the body.
That man, before he feels his personality value, his I, should experience himself as a
social group, party or nation - this is one of the special and significant demands of the
last ideological overthrow movements: with it the same relationship returns in which
once the primitive stood to the totem of tribe and clan.

In the reawakening of the Russian people, in the belief of Bolshevism in its prophetic-
universal mission, the meaning of that relapse into primitive social conditions, which can
already be observed in various forms, is confirmed. The Russian Revolution is rightly
addressed as the final departure of a barbaric-Asian race against the tsar's 200-year
attempts to civilize Russia on the European model. And equally correct is the view that
Bolshevism consequently flows spontaneously with all the elements of decomposition
of European society today. Bolshevism is nothing else than the primitive Slavic spirit of
the people reviving in a modern form: this traditionless people in its social mysticism,
the fusion of spirituality and sensuality, the predominance of pathos over ethos, of the
instinctive over the intellectual, points back to prepersonal formlessness and communist
promiscuity, just as they are peculiar to the primitives.

The shocks of the world war have set these elements free again: for the still healthy
members of Europe terrible germs of inner decomposition. The "culture" of the Soviets
proclaims the "age of the proletariat", devotes itself to this end to the annihilation of
personality and freedom, which is considered a "leprosy", the "poison of bourgeois
society" and the "beginning of all evil". The Soviets demand not merely the abolition of
private property, they demand, as is well known, the abolition of all free and
independent thought and of all "motives directed to the supernatural or to any interests
alien to the working class" (Lenin); their aim is the advent of the "omnipotent mass-
man" who alone shall live and give shape to every form of life and thought of the
individual. The only thing modern about Bolshevism is its "method": mechanization and
rationalization are the most excellent means to realize the "mass-man" already
mystically pre-existing in the Slavic soul in a universal people's rule built on a purely
economic basis. Thus the culture of the Soviets consciously approaches another race
which likewise arrogates to itself a universal mission of world renewal and the claim to
pronounce the last word of culture: the American.

61
In America the process of regression does not betray the elemental force of a people
persisting in a cultureless state. Here, on the contrary, the merciless lawfulness is at
work, by virtue of which all men, as soon as they have turned from the form of the
purely spiritual to the desire for the day-bound things, inevitably cease to belong to
themselves and become parts of that irrational collective being which they are no longer
able to control. The beatification of the world, the laicization of the sacred to which
Protestant heresy has opened the gates, have brought America to its present condition.
By actually achieving the ideal of Europe, domination of the world, the United States has
- probably unconsciously - completely reinterpreted power, health, activity, and
personality into the practical and physical, thus creating a much more dangerous form
of barbarism. Here the ascetic is regarded as a day thief and parasite, as a "superfluous
member of human productive society"; the warrior is considered a homicidal and
hypertensive person, the humanitarian-pacifist arrangements should take it upon
themselves to abolish this class in order to replace it by boxers, detectives and cowboys.
On the other hand, the perfect type, the spiritual fighter and the winner of bets is the
"working, productive man"; no kind of activity, not even that of the mind, has validity if
it does not appear under the name of "productive work" and is in the "service of
society". This conception irrefutably shows that such a "culture" culminates precisely in
the type of the last-ranking state familiar from antiquity - that of the labor slave. Here,
too, man, having renounced his spiritual personality, ceases to have any significance,
except within the framework of those "duties" which are imposed on him by the
collective community whipped forward by the fever of achievement, the instinct of
movement and realization. Only illegally, however, such "duties" can claim moral, even
religious validity - as in the latest ideologies; the standardization of the soul itself and its
dissolution into a flattened generality and into the all-dominating economic-mechanical
are the obvious goal. In the process, even the ability to recognize the degree of this
decay is extinguished.

These are the forms in which the circle closes, the decline completes. Russia and
America are two equivalent examples, two identical faces of one and the same thing.
From the earlier so obvious similarity with the human organism, in the state developing
in the splendor and the authority of the higher castes, the social body has now sunk to
the type of a subhuman torso image. Emergence of the antlitzless animal. Thus we are
given all the elements to approach the problem in all seriousness: What is the true meaning
of nationalism in the modern world?

After all that has been said, the following type of clearly recognizable nationalism
already emerges: it is that state which immediately precedes the international structure
of an economic-proletarian collectivism. What is important in this nationalism is not so
much the formation of a special national consciousness: rather the fact that the "nation"
has become a person, an independent being. The inability to overcome those bonds of
soil and blood which affect only the natural side of man is elevated to an ethical value. It
is the impossibility of the individual to acquire a sense outside the collectivity and the
given traditions. The mere fact of being a "national" gives

62
Here, all phenomena are given the radiant wreath of mystical inviolability, guaranteeing
and demanding unconditional respect. This ethnic-infra-intellectual element not only
does not recognize higher principles as having any authority, but rather subordinates
them to itself; in the first place is the "nation" - then, in subordination, come reality,
truth and culture. Certain nationalist groups, however, go even further: they reject any
uninvolved and objective judgment as abstract; they demand that even in questions of
reality, truth and culture one should not disregard national tradition and political
interests. Therefore, they also speak of "our" scientific, philosophical, and even religious
tradition and express a preconceived disdain or, at the very least, indifferent reserve
against everything that is not "of us," that is not necessarily "conducive to the nation."
(When we speak of "tradition" in the negative sense, we refer only to that conception of
it which does not contain an intellectual - that is, supra-ethnic - element. In this case,
however - to speak with Chesterton - "tradition" means merely the extension of the
democratic majority right over the historical: the totemic right of the dead stands above
the living, a right based on the fact of being dead of the same race).

Just as no superior activity is allowed to develop freely and to create an existence above
the ethnic conditions, so there is no room and no appreciation for a more highly
developed personality in the framework of such nationalism, unless it is an "exponent"
of the nation. Born in the age of revolutions, in the collapse of aristocratic-feudal
systems of government, this nationalism therefore expresses the purest "mass spirit" - it
is a variant of democratic intolerance, an intolerance directed against any leader who is
not exclusively a "servant of the fatherland" and an organ of the "will of the people" and
depends in everything and for everything on the approval of the same.

Without difficulty, then, we see that between nationalism and the Russian or American
type of anonymity there is basically only one difference in degree: in the first case, the
individual sinks back into the ethnic-national primordial ground; in the second case,
however, the differences of the ethnic primordial groups disappear as well, a
widespread collectivization, a decomposition into the element of mass, comes into
being. In order to pass from one to the other degree of collectivism, it is enough that in
place of the racial mysticism the idea of a purely economic-mechanical type is put. It is
due to the impersonal character of such a structure if last remnants of the difference of
quality are actually eradicated: by the rationalization and mechanization of public life
the gates of the future are virtually opened to the fatherless "mass man". - Since the
"culture" of today stands on the standpoint of economic-mechanical development of
power, since on this level more or less all values and scales are led back, the step from
one to the other is perhaps only a question of time.

And yet one asks: can there be another meaning inherent in nationalism? We believe
that we can answer this question in the affirmative. We have said that nationalism
appears as a transitional form in the epoch of the third caste that has attained political
rule, but before the final emergence of the last class.

63
This situation in the history of ideas enables nationalism to become the bearer of a
double meaning. As a transitional form, it can be found both in the direction of decay
and in the direction of reconstruction. Assuming that the process of regression has
reached its end in the sense of an Americanized or Sovietized world, those who still feel
the forces for a resurrection would again meet nationalism in the new rise - but a
completely different kind of nationalism! Like the quantities called "vectorial" by
physics, the phenomenon of nationalism can be determined only on the basis of a
directional factor: The first form of nationalism is in the direction according to the
collectivum realized in the degree of "nation". In the second, on the contrary, the
direction is from the collectivity to the reconstruction of a new aristocratic hierarchy.
The preconditions of this second nationalism can be indicated in an excellent way by the
words of Paul de Lagarde: "An individual nation stands higher than humanity, and each
individual member of a nation is more - that is, should be more - than merely national,
more than merely what each nation-mate is as such: in nationality there is added to
humanity a very valuable x; and in the individual personality there is added to this
valuable x a still much more valuable y". (P. de Lagarde, Deutsche Schriften, B.I, p. 163.
Cf. p. 423: "With the idea of humanity we must break: for it is not that which is common
to all men which is our own duty, but that which is suitable only to us"). It is thus a
hierarchy that progresses from the abstract to the concrete; the abstract is the
collective, the general - the concrete is the differentiated individual. Compared to the
formless mass of "mankind", the resurgence of a differentiated national consciousness
can already represent a first progress. The national consciousness, the ethnic tribe,
however, should again become only formless matter compared to the personality. The
personality, which finds itself, completes itself according to higher forms of life, reaching
beyond the blood-conditioned, transforms that matter from chaos to cosmos, from
potentia to actus. The relationship thus turns into the opposite: the nation is no longer
the purpose of the individual - the individual as spiritual-aristocratic personality, on the
contrary, becomes the purpose of the nation. The nation can be considered as its
mother, but it has only the meaning of the material conditionality of the soil compared
to a tree, the upper parts of which tear themselves loose from the soil and climb up to
the free heights.

This clarifies the main point of difference. For the final clarification we still have to refer
to the qualitative meaning of the old caste hierarchy. A nationalism which is not to be a
prelude to mechanical-collectivist conditions, but an overcoming of such conditions and
a prelude to reconstruction, is possible only on the basis of the following demand:
unconditional power and immediate authority for a new order of values which
transcends all that is practical, "social" and economic. Otherwise no true hierarchy can
exist, and without hierarchy the return to a higher, spiritualized type of state cannot be
accomplished. In fact, hierarchy does not mean mere subordination, but subordination
of the lower to the higher. But lower is all that can be measured by practical, interested,
worldly standards; higher is that which expresses the nature of pure and objective
action. Any other criterion is either illusory or pernicious.

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"Illusory" is the idea of hierarchy within the framework of the merely economic, but on
the basis of diversities of money, of skill, of political or official rank, of "class" in the
Marxist sense, etc. Only when interests arise which decidedly transcend the total field of
the economic is the principle of true hierarchy given. We must start from the premise
that our purpose in life is not the development of economy, but that any economy is a
means to an end. But the end is the inner elevation, the development of the personality
in the integral and "supra-worldly" sense.

Hierarchy is distortion when it expresses the enslavement of the non-practical under the
practical: like a body that shapes the mind into its organ. This is roughly what Julien
Benda means by the "trahison des clercs". But in the "pragmatism" prevailing in all fields
- even in that of the scientific -, in the small-money Machiavellianism and general
careerism of today, this very distortion is confirmed in the majority of cases. But nothing
is more anti-hierarchical, even anarchistic, than such types of apparent "hierarchy." -

We had set ourselves the task of exploring the two opposing possibilities of nationalism.
An examination of the extent to which the various nationalisms prevailing and struggling
in European and non-European states today embody one or the other possibility is not
within the scope of the present consideration.

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9 Overcoming activism
From: Deutsches Volkstum, 1933, p. 929fl.

That activism has become something like a watchword in the modern age can hardly be
denied. In theory and practice, action, that is, everything that is tension, momentum,
becoming, transformation, eternal search, inexhaustible movement, is praised and
defended. The level of "principles" so familiar to the rationalistic world of thought of the
19th century is inexorably approaching its twilight - and this demise is still greeted with
joy. In fact, today we are witnessing not only the triumph of action, but also a
philosophy of its own in the service of action, which, with the help of a systematic
critique and a strong speculative apparatus, strives to create alibis of every kind for itself
and pours out its contempt with full hands on the values represented from points of
view rooted in deviation from tradition.

The interest in "knowing" is more and more pushed back in favor of the interest in
"doing", or at least in favor of the elements which are translatable from the sphere of
knowing into that of doing and practical realization. Most people today hardly know
what to do with a pure cognition, whose proper object, as in the traditional concept, is
supposed to be a superhistorical reality, a superworld - hyperkosmia - beyond time and
space. When looking at the world of things, the modern eye has become more and
more accustomed to neglect its "being"-aspect in order to refer all the more to its
aspect as "becoming", "development", "history".

Thus "historicism" and "dynamism" unite with "activism" also on the level of higher
forms of culture. In the field of exact science, principles which until yesterday were
considered to be inherently evident and unchangeably valid, are today addressed as
hypothetical assumptions which must be subjected to control in the sense of the
process of development of scientific knowledge. In the opinion of many, even in the
religious sphere the immutability of dogmas visibly loses that validity which is due to
them as a reflection of transcendent absoluteness, as it is supposed to be inherent in a
truth of "non-human" character. A thoroughly profane exegesis, in alliance with the so-
called comparative religious studies, endeavors to see in the dogmas themselves
nothing more than moments of the process of development of an "immanent" history
of religious need: whereby not for a moment is hesitated to make the most blatant
humanizations.

In the field of philosophy the situation is even clearer. Pragmatism, voluntarism are
currents which - even if in different forms - all flow together in a single motto which
translates into the forms of speculative justification nothing else than the basic motive
of the immediate existence of today, its tumult, its speed fever, its mechanization
shortening every interval of time and space, its convulsive, breathless rhythm, as it
pushes to the utmost limit especially in America. Here the

66
activist theme into an almost demonic paroxysm, it absorbs the wholeness of life in a
constant, unrestrained acceleration, while the horizon is continually darkened by time-
bound transient realizations. Here the demony of the collective becomes omnipotent in
its domination over beings deprived of any tradition-rooted hold and cramped to a
restlessness that wants to go beyond all limit, while in many cases subpersonal and
antlitz powers push them towards the "animal ideal" of an ahrimanic world.

What is exceedingly characteristic is the fact that modern culture does not limit itself to
reflecting the activist orientation of life, but whips it up even further, exaggerates it,
sees it not only as an actual given, but rather as something that should be, because it is
good to be that way. The glorification of activity - in its manifestations as irrationality
and primitiveness - is often confused with the glorification of life itself, even with the
spirituality of world events. Torn down from the sphere of the eternal and
unconditional, the spirit itself is understood as "becoming," as "history," as "élan vital,"
and presents itself under this guise as the object of a new superstitious religion and
mysticism. Things have reached a point today where, for those who have not yet
completely forgotten those ancient traditions on which our true spiritual nobility was
based, a halt and an exact account of the situation in relation to a superior point of view
imperatively impose themselves.

Certainly, this undertaking is not easy, since today even the literal sense corresponding
to the various value formations has been almost lost to most. The truth may be
pronounced that a healthy culture is not possible if next to the principle of action there
is not that of contemplation. For this reason, modern historicist and activist culture, far
from representing a higher privileged form of culture, rather stands before us like an
anomaly, like a hideous marvel in its hypertrophic one-sidedness. Within the framework
of any tradition-bound conception, contrary to so many misinterpretations of this term,
"contemplation" did not at all mean passivity, evasion, renunciation, repression of
energy, but that austere path by which asceticism and inner elevation from "life" to
"more-than-life", from the sense-bound reality to a metaphysical experience, from
which supra-individual principles and realizations can be derived, which are suitable as a
basis for realizations and rearrangements also in the level of the death-bound nature
and the act itself, which acquire only in this way a meaning and a higher right.

Our modern world recognizes only the time-bound reality. Every transcendental view is
regarded as "overcome". Historicism, that retrospective consideration of all things
under their merely temporal, therefore subordinate aspect, gives as gain what is
basically nothing more than a dull impoverishment of higher possibilities, as they have
been recognized and hierarchically asserted by every tradition-bound culture. A world so
constituted gets to the point of not even grasping the sense and deeper value of the act.
A criticism and revolt against the briefly outlined orientation of the contemporary world
is not feasible in the name of a standstill at any price or an intellectualistic-rationalistic
abstraction, but only in the name of the action itself: by the proof,

67
that the "modern" world basically knows as much as nothing about what really is action.
What it claims and praises is only a subordinate and inferior form of action. Precisely
therein lies the confusion and danger. There is action and action. A healthy activism is to
be distinguished from an activism that is only fever, exaltation, centerless frenzy, which,
far from testifying to strength - as the vulgar conception wants - rather only points to
inability and incapacity. Today, it is almost universally this second aberrant type of
activism. Therefore, the need arises to return to a more elevated conception, to restore
balance and inhibit a process whose destructive consequences are all too evident.

One has lost the sense for what in the classical traditions the opposition between
natural and intelligent world meant spiritually. The movement was for such teaching the
substantial principle of the natural things, but only as "eternal flight of the things which
are and, as it were, are not" (Plotinus), as incapacity of the completion, of the self-
possession in a limit and in a law, of the self-realization as a perfect act. The
"intelligible" world - kosmos noetos - was not the world of non-action, but rather of
completed action, that which was opposed to the nature of "nature" insofar as it was
free from desire, from "privation," self-sufficient: as absolute action, it has in itself its
object and its master. A supernatural, aristocratic ideal of action was thus the soul of such
an anti-modern show, without, however, exhausting itself in it. Whoever lets some
tradition-bound teachings of the Aryan East have an effect on him, is forced to marvel at
the assertion that everything that is movement, activity, becoming, change - belongs to
the passive and female principle, symbolized in the female aspect of the deity: Çakti,
while the positive, male, solar principle, symbolized in the male deity Çiva or Purusha,
belongs to immobility, unchangeability, identity. Likewise, for very few today, the
meaning of the sentence would be evident: "The wise man recognizes in the deed the
non-deed and in the non-deed the true deed".

This sentence does not mean at all that quietism and that nirvanatum, with which
insufficiently educated people believe to be able to characterize the whole Orient.
Rather, it expresses the consciousness of a higher, aristocratic ideal of activity,
compared to which the ordinary deed is almost relegated to the rank of non-action. The
thought itself is quite similar to what Aristotle meant metaphysically and theologically
with his doctrine of the immovable mover: He who is the cause and actual master of the
movement does not move himself. He excites and directs the movement, arouses the
action, but does not act himself, is not carried along in the action of the deed, is not
action, but an immobile, thoroughly calm, dominating superiority, from which the action
proceeds and depends. Therefore, with an expression taken from the farthest East, its
powerful and invisible dominion is "action without action" - wei-wu-wei. Given this ideal
of a ruled action, the one who acts out of momentum, passion, empathy, desires, and
restless needs is not really an agent of action, but already an agent of action.
Paradoxical as this expression may sound, his action is a passive action. Compared to the
transcendent, higher-order, royally cold, purely determining, immobile way of the "lords
of movement", his acting is

68
He moves, creates, runs, but the reason, the absolute cause of his action lies outside of
himself, just as with the woman the initiative causing her conception is situated outside
of her.

If one approaches the deepest meaning of the activist, dynamist, Bergsonian teachings,
as they are in vogue today, in the light of the indicated distinction between the ideal of
action and non-action - it can be found in the most diverse occidental and oriental forms
of expression - one will always find, in principle, precisely that passive and subordinate
form of action. What is praised today is generally nothing other than the blind,
instinctive elan that drives one to go without knowing why one is going, without having
the power to be other than one is, to control oneself, to create in oneself a center, a
limit, an absolute ground: action for the sake of action, out of mere spontaneity, out of
immediate and never to be redeemed necessity, which is presupposed as the deepest
law of life, even of the spirit. In many cases even the whole thing amounts merely to the
more or less conscious will to stupefy and distract oneself, to a restlessness or a noise
which betrays the fear of the great silence, of the inner seclusion, of the absolute being
of the higher individuality, in that thereby the very elevation of man against the eternal
is supported.

Someone has correctly compared the kind of movement praised by modern civilization
to that on a wheel, which becomes all the faster and more dizzying at greater distance
from the center. This corresponds in fact to the truth. Plotinus had already outlined to
us the concept of that becoming which means nothing else than "the eternal flight of
the non-being beings". This realization should serve us as a sure basis for a spiritual
reaction and restoration.

The tumult of modern life, the unleashed multiplicity of forces which it has produced
both in the framework of the social order and even in the realm of nature, which is
increasingly technically dominated, should be counteracted by forces of centrality: of
asceticism, of command-violence, of absolute domination, absolute individuality,
absolute show - forces which today are rarer than ever to be discerned among our
fellow men. It would be a vain hope that this deficiency could be remedied so long as
the ideal of action prevails in its supremacy, and action is fixed again and again upon a
single type of material and passive deed, obeying an external impulse and directed
outward. As long as no other is valid than this and the inner, the secret deed, which
does not create machines, banks and societies, but human beings, ascetics, free beings,
rulers over their own souls, freed from any thirst, is not considered as deed, but as
renunciation, abstraction, loss of time; as long as the criterion of value is understood in
this way, as long as, on the one hand, one continues to glorify that action which is
nothing but passion-bound action, unregulated "life-swing," irrationality of an
unstoppable becoming, joy in the tension and striving, in contrast to which the
attainment, the exact and calm fulfillment and solution is considered the worst
misfortune, the death of life (no other meaning is given to romantic doctrines like those
of Herder and Schlegel or the Faustian conception of life of an Oswald Spengler); as long
as, on the other hand, one continues to stifle every interest that

69
is not oriented towards material goals, towards social and quantitative instead of
qualitative realizations - as long as nothing better can be expected than a breathless
staggering, which drifts further and further away from any center, from any meaning,
from any control except that which is conditioned by the interdependence of the parts
of a monstrous wheelwork in which the individual is no longer capable of anything.

As already indicated, we see American civilization striving towards this very goal; not
really different from this is the Soviet ideal, which denies any role to the history-
dominating personality, in order to extol all the more the automatic development of the
mechanized, omnipotent "collective man" as a task. Thus the technical-activist
orientation of the "modern" world is led ad absurdum, as soon as it has buried the
tradition-bound ideals. If it is impossible to pass by the achievements of this civilization,
its really barbaric aspect, which can be called ahrimanic, is equally unmistakable. The
proud temples created by such deeds stand empty of gods; never will the gods descend
to them unless a decision is made to react, to realign people of a different generation
and outlook on life. If the modern world, in its passive activism, in its feverish running of
thirsty or persecuted people, basically realizes nothing else than the last consequences
of romanticism (which, for its part, is in many respects the last manifestation of Semitic
messianism), a new equilibrium, which does not extinguish action, but integrates it,
centralizes it, elevates it to sunny activity, can be achieved only in the sense of a
restoration of the classical experience (in the wider sense of this word).

It is necessary to return to the "Olympic" component, as it was inherent in all great

traditions of the luminous Aryan spirituality. For the romantic man the "infinite" is the
value, the "limit" the evil. Classical man, on the other hand, saw in the infinite - apeiron
- the evil, insofar as he saw in it the indeterminate, which is chaos and not yet cosmos:
be it in itself, in the uncontrolled tumult of passions and sense impressions - be it
outside of it, in the indeterminate becoming of things and beings, which "are and are
not" embedded in the stream of time. The limit - péras - on the other hand, was
understood as absolute perfection, as the dominion of ethos over pathos, as the sign of
a power capable of transcending itself, of conquering itself, of giving itself form and
absolute law, in order to approach, in ascetic or heroic clarity, a mode of being proper
to the "superworld." For the classical man, limit is completion, goal, work, highest type
of spirituality, as it appeals to us, for example, from the calm and powerful linearity of
the Doric style, as it also symbolically appears in the visualizations of solar and astral
kind of the Aryan myths.

The foregoing remarks could only touch upon this widely ramified subject. At least we
believe to have shown the positive point of relation against the dangers of modern
activism. What we need today is the ideal of a new classicism of action and domination,
infused with a new breakthrough of the supernatural, disciplined by the values of
masculine asceticism and aristocratic superiority over simple "life". Thus slowly new
centers will mature, new qualities and personalities - new only because they are
traditional in the

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are in the deepest and most vital sense of the word - before whom, out of a law of
destiny, the centerless powers will obediently bow in a better future, those powers
without countenance and without luminosity which are unleashed upon us in these end
times.

71
10 Overcoming the superman
From: German Folklore, 1936

It is surprising how easily ideas that lack any real consistency often gain suggestive
power - so much so that they create a kind of passionate alibis for themselves: those
who believe them to be true experience them in such a way that they eventually believe
they find them confirmed by their own experience.

This is true, for example, of evolution and Darwinism. The theory of man from the
animal and the selection of species by assertion of the stronger against the various
conditions of the environment, by adaptation and hereditary transmission of the traits
of character - this materialistic and anti-aristocratic myth of the science of yesterday
everybody already recognizes as a more than shaky hypothesis, which has had its time
and which sees itself deprived of its supposed "positive" foundations more and more
every day. And yet, until yesterday, this theory meant a revelation for a whole
generation: not as a hypothesis to be considered and tested within the purely scientific
field among many others, but as a new and undoubted world view, as an enlightening
discovery, as a new knowledge gained once and for all by the human race. And there we
find an art, like Jack London's, as a typical example of the mentioned passionate alibis.
Jack London, in fact, often makes us experience the theory of evolution and natural
selection. Based on his general conception of life in a whole series of figures, events,
descriptions and episodes, it appears to us as true, as evident. The suggestive power of
art puts before us as true a world in which the biological heritage, the instinct of self-
preservation and the struggle for existence are indeed the leitmotifs, in which the
highest type of man more or less resembles the type of the wonderful beast, the animal
that in full possession of all its powers and life instincts has triumphed over everything,
has prevailed against everything: as it were, as the sum of a series of heritages which
have reached him through the dark ways of blood, from the primeval times of savages,
forests or icy deserts, if not from animal-like pre-humanity.

Not too different from this is the atmosphere in which, in general, the myth of the
"superman" gained form and life. The designation goes back in part to Nietzsche. We
say partly because Nietzsche's philosophy is composed of far more diverse and
heterogeneous components than is generally supposed. After all, it cannot be denied
that the evolutionist superstition with its biological appendages was able to operate
extensively on an area of Nietzsche's thought which, though not trivial, is of course the
most decrepit. One may say that what has been understood by Nietzsche until
yesterday, goes back predominantly to this area, precisely as to that which is in direct
connection with the ideas spread in the time.

Nietzsche's theory of the "superman" is an appendage of naturalism - and as such it is

something that now belongs to the past, and which, taken by itself, could misguide the
aspirations of the best of the new generation - insofar as in

72
It is in the "religion of life" or, better said, in the "superstition of life" that everything
begins and ends. Thus we would like to call a conception, in the center of which stands
that pure vitality in its merely biological meaning, which natural science considers
purely externally, according to the same method which it applies to matter, and which
in turn the "voluntarists," the "intuitionists," and the "activists" interpret as an
immediate sensation, as something given directly by consciousness. In any case,
however, such a thing is only that of the animal, instinctive, pre-personal life; it is the
root and the deeper will of that which in us is only body and nature. Now the views
under discussion seem to want to see nothing else in man, or if they recognize
something else, they always recognize it as a subordinate, as a derived reality to "life".
For them, the "I" is not a supernatural principle, not the expression of another reality,
but more or less the sensation of the life force, which can be increased or decreased,
strengthened or weakened.

Only from here the well-known Nietzsche concept of the "revaluation of all values" and
likewise the power theory following from it receives existence and meaning up to a
certain degree. A number of ethical, social and religious conceptions had conspired for
centuries against the "life", had favored a sinister selection in the wrong sense, in so far
as in them everything was passed off as spirit and value what kills and emasculates the
instinct, what clouds or diminishes the feeling of the vital force. It is the values of
"decadence" and "resentment" which the slaves, the weak, the disinherited, the badly
gone proclaimed and with which they gradually wore away the basis on which in healthy
and strong times the superman and the right of the superman as the ruler were based
and triumphed. Nietzsche calls for a revolt against these "values of decadence," he
reveals their poison and establishes as the principle of a new valuation the criterion that
only that which affirms the life instinct, justifies the life instinct, increases the life
instinct, the highest expression of which for him is the "will to power," is to be
considered true, moral, legitimate, spiritual and beautiful; and that everything which
distances from life, limits life, condemns life, is false, immoral, ugly and contrary to law.
Nietzsche proclaims a new religion of the will to power as a prelude to the advent of a
new epoch of the superman.

One must admit that Nietzsche understands the "will to power" as the will not only to
external, but also to internal domination. The superman is not only the master of man,
but also the one who lets instincts, which are developed to an elementary, threatening
vehemence, correspond to the ability to control them absolutely, but not in the sense of
suppressing them, but to keep them like wild animals on the chain and to let them burst
forth as soon as he wants. Of course, in one case as in the other, or in the ruler over
himself as in the ruler over the others - in the part of Nietzsche's philosophy considered
here - everything ends only in a feeling, a sensation. The will to power, developed
through good and evil, through the hardest trials and up to the most nonsensical
consequences, with absolute relentlessness towards oneself and others, has always only
the value of a heightened and carried to the extreme "life"-feeling and of an "I" that
gains consciousness and confirmation of itself from nothing else but this wild feeling.
The tide swells, but it can end in nothing,

73
finds no transfiguration. The uplift is basically in vain; asceticism is dark, almost
demonic, it enjoys itself, is without higher meaning.

A commentator of Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, has spoken of circumstances in which the

intensity of life in its utmost degree - the "more-life" - is transformed and, as it were,
changes into another "quality", into a "more-than-life". But in the world of this
Nietzschean superman, the conditions are missing for such a process to become reality:
an idea is missing, a point of reference that becomes, so to speak, a transformer in the
circuit and allows this to appear as "light", as "more-than-life", i.e. as revelation and
affirmation of a supernatural. Apollo, the Olympian principle, the Olympian superiority,
interpreted by Nietzsche as a symbol of the unreal and the external, remains for him
always the enemy and the danger for Dionysus, i.e. for life, the indomitable impetus of
life, which turns to itself, affirms itself and does not want to be at all other than it is,
insofar as every beyond is for him an illusion and escape of impotent and sick people.
The circle remains closed. And we consider it certain that the evocation - albeit
unconscious and speculative - of a life of the highest height, the intensity of which only a
supernatural point of reference could be adequate, and the non-possession of such a
point of reference, so that that intensity chased back into itself caused, as it were, a
short circuit - we consider that this was precisely the situation that actually led
Nietzsche to a tragic end, to madness.

If "man is something that must be overcome", if "man is the bridge that leads from the
animal to the superman", this overcoming, this transition is illusory if one does not start
from the premise of the existence of two opposite natures, of two opposite worlds, and
instead continues to consider nothing but "life" in its various forms and degrees of
strength, the only quality "life". And today "racism", in certain of its misapplications,
which certainly correspond neither to the higher ideality of the German tradition nor to
that of the National Socialist revolution, seems to resume precisely the worst heritage
of Nietzsche, when it proceeds to trace back every value to its biological basis and to see
in life, blood and race the measure and the preconditions for every spiritual form: it
thus amounts to a falsifying restriction which without further ado blocks the way to a
true overcoming and a true superhumanity.

For us, on the other hand, what has been true in all great traditions applies: that "life" is
not spirit, and spirit is not "life," but that spirit gives form to "life"; and that what
actually gains higher and more compelling expression in "life" does not come from
"life," but from the spirit that reveals itself through life or by means of life, i.e., from
something supernatural. If one has recognized the true center in this sense, then the
first precondition for every true overcoming is that one leads the self-consciousness, the
"I"-feeling step by step from the pole "life" to the pole "spirit". But today the
voluntaristic, activistic, irrationalistic tendencies work exactly in the opposite sense: by
strengthening in every way the purely physical and "vital" I-feeling, they strengthen at
the same time the prison of the I, they lead to an ossification, a trumpeting, a brutalized
and de-spiritualized conception of will and individuality, of health and of the

74
power, which equals just as many obstacles to inner emancipation. Here the circuits
remain closed. The reference point for the "transforming" of the "intensive-life", the
"more-life" into a "more-than-life" is missing. The Übermensch does not reach beyond
the "beautiful vanquishing beast" or the "demon" of Dostoevsky, this reduction of
Nietzsche into the absurd. If the - inwardly - conjured intensity does not have the
possibility to result in something, it can only give way to an exaggerated, tearing tension,
that silent tragedy which the "titanic" always brings with it.

Olympian, on the other hand, is the true type of the superman: a calm grandeur
expressing an irresistible superiority, something that startles and at the same time
arouses admiration by abruptly triggering the sensation of a transcendent power
perfectly mastered but ready to be discharged, the wonderful and threatening feeling
that antiquity always associated with the concept of "numen". "Over-life" - i.e. spirit,
completely realized I in its supernatural manifestation - which permeates and absolutely
dominates everything that is merely "life" - this is the essence of that type.

But this type, the true superman, cannot be traced back to a construction of today's
thinking. Quality characteristic of a super-race, substance of what in the Nordic-Doric
race was the classical ideal of the form in the heroic-sacred- Hellenic culture circle,
always received itself in the consequence as a symbol in the ruling aristocracies. There is
no great tradition of Indo-European antiquity that did not know it. The tradition of the
"divine right" of the legitimate kings, because male bearers of a power from above, is
the last echo of this. If one understands the sudden reappearance of this ancient
concept in a world in which all great horizons were already absent, in which there
existed for its embodiment, apart from a confused desire for power and freedom, only
the profane and obscure myths of evolutionism and natural selection, one also
understands the invisible birth of Nietzsche's theory of the superman, its limits and the
path that can lead beyond them.

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11 Our anti-bourgeois front
From: Der Ring, No. 27, 6. 7. 1934

Only recently Mussolini again took a stand against the "bourgeois spirit" that is rich in
significant content in its decisiveness. Mussolini declared that bourgeois spirit and
fascist spirit, bourgeois ethics and heroic ethics are irreconcilable opposites. Already
once he had expressed: "Fascism spurns the comfortable life". To all that history can
condemn to bourgeois immobility, Mussolini, in the new speech to which we refer here,
contrasted the principle of a "continuous revolution," that is, of an uninterrupted
creative tension which, hidden and invisible in the "gray toil of daily construction,"
should nevertheless reach full revelation in the "radiant moments of sacrifice and
glory."

Even if these statements are primarily on the level of the present fascist political reality
in Italy, they are capable of a further development, in the sense of general and idealistic
orientations, not only valid for Italy alone. To break the bourgeois front in its entirety
and in all its material and intellectual, economic and sentimental ramifications is indeed
the most urgent task of our epoch.

Bourgeoisie has three basic aspects: social the first, moral the second, sentimental the
third. We will briefly note their individual characteristics here.

Socially speaking, bourgeoisie carries its own definition already in the word.
"Bourgeoisie" is synonymous with the "third estate," more precisely with the class of
tradesmen and artisans resident in the medieval cities. Now it is clear that the
"progress" of history since the Middle Ages can essentially be summed up in an
abnormal development of the bourgeois element and of the interests and activities
peculiar only to it, while the other, higher elements of the medieval hierarchy remain
outside - a development which has quite the character of a cancerous proliferation. It is
the bourgeois who pours out with full hands the curse of ridicule on the ideals of the
preceding chivalrous age. It is the citizen who first, like those "new people" so despised
by Dante, gave the signal for anti-traditional indignation by appropriating (as a
"philistine," i.e.) the right to bear arms, fortifying the centers of impure economic
power, and helping his banner to break through; it is the citizen who, in the urban
communes, counterposed an anarchic claim to autonomy to imperial authority. It is the
citizen who has gradually brought it about that today a claim appears as the most
natural thing in the world, which in other, normal times would have been considered an
absurd heresy: namely, that the economy is our destiny, so that now profit is our
purpose in life, haggling and trading a "doing," the conversion of every value into the
terms of "rentier" - of prosperity, of comfort, into values of speculation, of supply and
demand - constitutes the essence of our civilization.

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For this reason, the saying that our modern civilization is a hebraized civilization is
anything rather than nonsensical. Modern civilization and bourgeois civilization had thus
become almost synonymous terms. To the advent of the citizen to power, who was
finally detached from the "medieval" residues first by the revolution and then by the
democratic constitutions, the Occident owes its illusory greatness and at the same time
the terrible spiritual destruction of which we are witnesses today.

The second aspect of bourgeoisie is its moralism. This is basically its modern aspect,
which must be underlined all the more, because its negative character escapes most
people, precisely because the process of the bourgeoisification of all values has finally
spread a uniform formamentis over all related expressions of life. In the text of a
tradition, which was laid down two thousand years before Nietzsche, one can read: "If
the way (i.e. the direct connection to pure spirituality) is lost, virtue remains; if virtue is
lost, ethics remains; if ethics is lost, moralism remains. Moralism is only the
externalization of ethics and denotes the principle of decline." In this saying are clearly
distinguished the various stages of the process of decline that has led down to the
bourgeois idol: to moralism. Such an idol had remained quite unknown to the great
tradition-bound cultures: they had never known a system of dressage and egalitarianism
built on convention, compromise, hypocrisy and cowardice, a system that bases its
claim to validity on an inferior socialized utilitarianism, that is, on a system of taboos for
the protection of undisturbed gorging, enjoying and doing business. Moralism has
developed in the same step with the parasitic degeneration of the bourgeois civilization
of the Occident, so that its attitude can be easily connected with the most characteristic
statements of the most important ideological exponents of this civilization.

By the way, it must be noted that if before the advent of the bourgeois spirit there was
no talk of moralism but of ethics, ethics itself is nothing more than secularized
spirituality and laicized religion. What today has the value of a conventional morality
and yesterday had the value of an inner ethics, possessed according to tradition a
"sacral" reason, which is already evident in symbolic veiling from the circumstance that
in antiquity every system of laws was regarded as "supernaturally" revealed or of
"divine" origin or as enacted by legislators not simply of human origin: Manes, Mino,
Manu, Numa and so on. This fact flows from the very essence of every tradition-based
culture, which always strives to relate man to a force from above, a force capable in its
intensity of tearing away, bending and taming every lowly, that is, purely human
element, thus creating possibilities of superhuman elevation, rather than inhibiting and
channeling every upsurge, every revelation of power and boldness, so as to arrive at the
serial production of little beings and little lives running on synchronized rails. Even if this
force from above is no longer present, its trace still remains for a while, there remains
an ethics in the classical sense, an ethos as an inner character form and tradition-bound
lifestyle, endowed with a

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spontaneous love of domination over oneself, of discipline, of daring, of fidelity, or of
command. Once this ethos has been exhausted, morality and the constant concern for
good manners begin to take its place, that is, moralism. The focus passes to the
Philistine in his various masks: from the fanatical Puritan to Candide and Babbitt. Thus
the inward emasculation, the normalization at any price, the compulsory
standardization all along the line comes to the breakthrough. Thus, there was a danger
of slipping from the bourgeois epoch to an even deeper and more degrading level on
the basis of logical continuity, namely in so far as, after Puritan standardism, the
methodical "liberation" from the "bourgeois prejudices" of the "personality", the "I" and
the "freedom of will" to the higher glory of a communist, mechanized and etatized
social conglomerate has become the watchword of the new soviet gospel. Therefore,
here, as in other fields (for example, in that of the economy, where bourgeois capitalism
has launched its Marxist antithesis in counterpoint to itself), a kind of nemesis or
immanent justice has arisen to strike hard at the subverters of higher order.

The third aspect of bourgeoisie is its sentimentalism. It is as typically bourgeois a quality

as romanticism itself. In the sentimental and romantic the small, tamed and "decent"
bourgeois soul culminates by being deeply moved by poetic sweetnesses, melodramatic
heroisms, pathetic complications of love, oleographic distortions of nature. All this,
however, serves him for nothing but physical compensation, in order to be able to hold
practically his social, professional and family daily routines undisturbed. In this sense,
the assertion is not at all paradoxical that idealism, i. e.
h. the worn-out rhetoric of "sacred ideals," "sublime ideas," "beliefs," and such
generalities is an entirely bourgeois affair: a fuzzy and empty thing, created only to
cover the absence of a silent creative force. We maintain, then, that, rather than
absence, it is the presence of "ideals" and "beliefs" in the sense indicated that
characterizes a bourgeois epoch. "Ideals" and "beliefs," on the other hand, were absent
where they were felt to be too little, where man was centrally grounded in relation to
himself, where a pure force, power, and genuine will to create prevailed. Ascetic
cultures, warlike cultures, creative cultures have as little room for "ideals" and "beliefs"
as for "moralities" and "sentimentalisms." In them, essentially superior forms of life
prevail - or rather: forms of a super-life, without rhetorical or sentimental
expressionisms, without taming, without the falsifications that necessarily adhere to
those who stand outside themselves, who vacillate toward their essential core and are
not fixed in themselves. This is true on the individual and typological level as well as on
the level of races and different phases of historical cycles.

The revolutions that today strive to impose their ferment in a salutary sense on old
Europe must, from the innermost logic, profess to be anti-bourgeois, and in this context
the clear and unequivocal declaration of Mussolini and the assertion of the historical
principle that results from it gains the significance of a sure and authoritative point of
reference. We said "from the innermost

78
Logic", insofar as historically such revolutions in their aspect of cultural reconstruction
today run through a scale in an ascending direction, which Europe has already run
through in a descending direction. After all, power had descended from the level of
purely intellectual authority to an aristocratic-military level and from there to the level
of the bourgeoisie and democracy, from where it threatened to sink to the level of the
proletarianized masses. The first phase of the European revolution and reconstruction
had the task of an annihilation of the Bolshevik-Marxist danger. The second phase can
be none other than the one of anti-bourgeoisie. Only in this way will it become possible
to come into contact with the tasks of a higher world order, an aristocratic
reconstruction.

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13 On the spiritual prerequisites of European unity
From: Paneuropa, 1932

The fact can hardly be denied that in the general sense of crisis and uneasiness which
frightens the whole European society of today, the ideal of a higher ecumenical culture is
evoked by the best spirits - a culture in which a new principle shall raise again to unity
the European traditions scattered in their forces and bearers.

It is likewise a fact that certain negative forces, which formerly appeared only in isolated
phenomena and, so to speak, only in a formless state, are now beginning to organize
themselves. They become powers in the special sense of this expression. However, in
their claim to dominance and antithetical character to all that can be regarded as
European tradition, such forces form a certain threat which calls us to a necessary
alternative. - So also from this point of view the demand for a European unity asserts
itself - at least as a unit of defense and resistance.

In this respect Count R. N. Coudenhove-Kalergi in his pamphlet "Stalin and Co." has
pointed out in clear lines the danger which the new Soviet Russia means for the future
Europe. This barbarous power is at present striving in the direction of absolute
organization of every force, rationalization and planned exploitation of its immense
natural possibilities. The Five-Year Plan stands before us as the first manifestation of this
will, which, moreover, is equipping itself for conscious international intentions. But if
Russia persists in this direction and in this will to power, we shall see a bloc which no
single European people, only a united Europe, could resist.

In our view, however, the Russian danger is not the only one to which a decisive
alternative is being imposed vis-à-vis tradition-bound Europe before it is too late. In the
West, the Russian danger corresponds to the American danger. It is true that this is not
yet an immediate - material or political - danger, although the very influence of
American finance on European politics is a worrying fact. There remains, however, the
danger of a materialistic worldview which can affect us in the same destructive, anti-
European sense as the Bolshevik ferment.

Russia, of course, cannot be equated with the United States. The two peoples in many
cases show unmistakable differences in people, temperament, race, and political
constitution. But one culture as well as the other proves to us the demoniac of the
collective; the anonymity of power; the conscious or instinctive lowering of every
transcendent interest under the interests of the group and its material realizations; the
mechanical ideal and technical messianism; the indifference (America) or hatred
(Russia) against the autonomous personality and every kind of "unproductive" activity -
against everything that was still considered "deed" or "contemplation" to us in the
tradition-bound sense. In

80
In this context, it should be noted that Soviet ideologists, technicians, and even poets
consciously model themselves after the American ideal, giving it almost a mystical
aureole.

Only one or the other hint can find place here. We cannot emphasize - as we have done
elsewhere - the numerous points in which the two cultures actually coincide. Only this
much: even from the economic point of view there is no fundamental opposition
between the Soviet state trust, where the proletarian capital is never allowed to dwell
with individuals, and the system of steady investment, the great American production,
where the capitalist sinks to a kind of ascetic tool for the multiplication and perpetual
productive accommodation of every profit. Ultimately, everything can be traced back to
the following difference: The forms which in Sovietism strive for realization through a
tension which preserves in itself something tragic and savage, through an actual
dictatorship and a system of terror - reappear in America under a semblance of
democracy and freedom, in that these forms prove to be the spontaneous result to
which the mere interest in production, the tearing away from any traditional element,
the "animal ideal" of material world conquest, has led.

For this very reason, America harbors a lurking danger: not, like Russia, as a hostile force
and a neatly formulated thought. Rather, it carries within itself the germ of that
inversion of values, that materialization and "socialization" for which the Soviet myth
stands as the ultimate result. By allowing itself to be carelessly Americanized, Europe
introduces into its sphere the Trojan horse; a principle which will dissolve in the peoples
every tradition-bound remnant. The external, practical, mechanical, sporting,
Americanized forms of life are inevitably imbued with a new conception of the world, on
the basis of which Europe - almost without realizing it - is moving in the very direction
where the danger of the omnipotent Soviet mass man is threatening.

The symbol which Europe can invoke for the unity for the defense of its life and the
preservation of its ancient tradition is therefore, in our opinion, incomplete if we do not
place Russia alongside America, if we do not recognize in the one and in the other the
two claws of a single pincer which tightens around us from East and West.

Destruction of the personal; rise of the collective; omnipotence of the mechanical over
the organic, of the mixed and standardized over the articulated; "trahison des clercs" on
a grand scale - that is, enslavement of every intellectual and spiritual possibility in favor
of merely material and "social" realizations - these are for us the characteristics of the
universal "ideal" claimed by America and Russia for a new and higher humanity.

Against this we should defend our universal European thought. We have deliberately
emphasized the spiritual side of the anti-European danger: precisely in order to come
closer to determining the true conditions of a new European unity.

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Today we have come to such a situation that the material and political dangers are
causing concern and ready counteraction all along the line. The material danger of the
new Russia, drawn with suggestive words by Count Coudenhove, will therefore perhaps
in a not distant time force the European peoples to interests and principles which will
finally reach beyond the limited political egoisms. Nevertheless, it remains for us that
any unity which is realized in the plane of the material - and to this plane belongs for us
all that which is economic and "political" in the narrow sense - can only be a transitory
unity, a unity which can be smashed to rubble again at any moment by the most diverse
forces, be they irrational. Moreover: If it is to be an organic unity, not the unity of a
mere aggregate, there is no thought of obtaining it by external means - by a series of
international treaties without the existence of a higher principle. Unity in one and the
same spirit, in a single tradition - this seems to us the premise from which to proceed,
the true basis on which one can organically arrive at a unity which is also material, at a
political "Pan-Europe". Likewise, it seems to us that the true point of reference must not
be an international one, but a supranational one.

When talking about the necessity of a "European" reaction, the crucial point must not
be overlooked: In whose name is resistance to be made? Suppose, to stand up against
Russia as a confederation of Soviet republics or against the United States. As Prince K. A.
Rohan has rightly seen in considering a similar question, "if several regiments march on
separate roads into an abyss, it is of little use that, without changing their direction, they
should unite beforehand into one army; then precisely the united army will fall into the
abyss and the downfall will remain the same." It would be frivolous to believe that by
creating some European form of unity the decline of this culture could be arrested if the
individual peoples have not yet carried out an inner renewal, that is, a reaction of the
same direction, a spiritual integration, whereby all that in them tends toward the
Russian or the American is eliminated. Then a single spirit would be present and active,
and the peoples would be virtually brought into the position of organically uniting into a
higher unity, above any individuality. It can also happen that the events precipitate, that
some economic, political or military form of unity imposes itself as an immediate
method of help, even before the spiritual counterpart corresponding to it, a European
total consciousness, is present. Nevertheless, it must be recognized: Where the outside
is not organized by an inside, where no soul gives unity, life and form to its own body -
there it can only be a question of unfinished phenomena, incapable of maintaining a
real and lasting existence.

The problem is therefore: In which direction should the individual European peoples
carry out that inner renewal which, on the one hand, can protect them from the final
overthrow of our traditions - and, on the other hand, lead to the overcoming of
everything that separates and opposes them?

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We believe that Western history offers elements for the solution of such a question. If
European unity is the myth of a better future, it is also the reality of our best past. In
medieval culture, a single spirit ruled over the most diverse races and traditions;
enthroned, as a point of reference superior to the limited interests of the individual
political units, was the supra-political, unified, not international, but precisely supra-
national authority of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, it is precisely medieval culture that
provides us with the example we need in the face of the crisis and materialism of the
modern world. Of course, we do not intend to return to outmoded and obsolete
phenomena: In other, suitable forms, however, one and the same spirit can be awakened
again and again. Provided this is the case, the processes which have led destructively
from the ecumenical medieval Europe to those of today are the most instructive: they
indicate the path which, in a modified way, when traversed in the opposite direction,
expresses the very sense of that integration of which we spoke earlier, and which
constitutes the condition of a new, true European unity.

We can only point out here the most general and well-known meaning of such
processes. - European unity perished when the supra-political principle of empire was
replaced by the political principle of fatherland. Through such a principle, Europe passed
from the universal to the particular, from the sacred to the blood-conditioned, in order
to finally end up in the mere collective and "social" (for which America and Russia may
be regarded as "top achievements"). The transition is most intimately connected with
the destruction of that hierarchical, tradition-bound ideal which formerly prevailed
within the individual states. As is well known, the means of binding feudal units was
neither the plebeian idea of nation nor the economic-social law, nor the power of a
centralized "public authority", but loyalty - fides. Out of the feeling of fidelity, the
peasant and industrial classes recognized the authority of the nobility, and the nobility
that of the prince. Fidelity - a fidelity already supra-temporal - made the prince capable
of subordinating the political unity of which he was the leader and living center to the
ecumenical and supra-political unity of the sacral empire. The social division allowed
each estate to develop its own way of life; the hierarchy of the estates made the
physical-economic part of the total life a separate stratum, beyond which the realization
of higher ways of life and deeds according to the heroic-aristocratic as well as the
ascetic ideal (which often coincided - as it was the case with the great orders of knights)
could take place unhindered. This division and hierarchy made possible the completion
of separate and free forms of personality - equally it led beyond the merely material and
social. Among the elites - that is, among those who were always capable of loyalty in the
higher sense - such a hierarchy created the possibility of domination for a supra-political
and universal thought. If Bolshevism literally declared through the mouth of Lenin that
the Roman-Germanic world was the greatest obstacle to the realization of the proletarian
ideal of the mass man, we have in it the confirmation that what has been indicated
above is most likely to us as a firm "European"-traditional standpoint and as the basis of
internal integration in the anti-Soviet and anti-American sense.

83
When the hierarchical medieval ideal perished, when the division into estates dissolved,
when the work of national centralization and the establishment of public powers began,
and when the leaders descended from the higher aristocratic functions to direct
absolutist interference in areas of politics already interwoven with the economy and the
nation as a collective - then a materialism set in by which the way was completely
cleared for a disintegrating particularism. The princes thus prepared their own downfall.
They created the organism in which, through the revolutions, the "nation" was to gain a
body as a mere collective. Although it may seem paradoxical, there is in fact only a
difference in degree between the ideology of the "nation", which presents itself as the
highest value to each of its members, and the myth of the omnipotent fatherless mass
man. It is a question of two successive stages of a counter-hierarchical and counter-
aristocratic decline, whereby in the last instance the promiscuity of primitive peoples is
revived: The "individual" here is nothing but an antlitigious part of the group. - This is
precisely the anti-European ideal - provided that the most important ideal for our
European tradition is to be sought in culture, in the formation of individual perfected
personalities, in the free organic placing of the same in a living hierarchy.

Even if in summary brevity, such considerations bring clarity to our subject. What
constitutes the strongest obstacle to any true European unity, in which the same evil to
which the struggle is directed betrays itself, is European nationalism precisely in the
plebeian-collective sense. Within the framework of such nationalism, race, economy,
politics in the narrower sense of this expression - that is, that which corresponds to the
physical of the old social organisms - arrogates to itself the value of the spirit, it denies
the authority of any activity superior to that which is politically or ethnically
conditioned; it debases the idea of class, nobility, even the state; it thus breaks up, with
a series of antagonistic schisms and concepts, the unity of the spirit and of tradition. As
long as spirituality is mixed with politics, and nobility with plutocracy or the leaders of a
merely economic or military organism, as long as the state is only "nation" - and not a
hierarchy of rank corresponding to the hierarchy of types and values - just as long, we
think, will desires, egoisms, hegemonisms of the various peoples, fighting and betting
plans of voracious monopoly trusts, etc., continue to exist as driving powers. On the
level of the material, which is not subject to any higher principle, a true unity is not
possible; here only fragmentation and struggle or the collapse of the collective-material-
technical "ideal" peculiar to the last age can be expected. In the last case perhaps the
state of a universal "brotherhood" would approach, in which, however, not the abolition
of the "national" spirit with its desires and its worldly pride, but its outermost form
would be recognizable. According to Benda's word: Then the nation will be
"Man" and the enemy is called "God".

In our opinion, the integration which would have to be carried out within the individual
peoples for the preparation of the new European unity should develop in the
aristocratic, respectively "classical" sense. On the political and economic level, an
intellectual upper class would have to separate itself, to which all the rest would be
subordinated.

84
would be subordinated. Thereby a counter-centralistic direction could begin, for the
creation of separate ways, functions and forms of activity as a basis of qualitatively
different realizations of the human personality.

We cannot consider here the various sides of such renewal. From a material point of
view, perhaps the idea of corporatism, not syndicalist but in the ancient sense
corresponding to the guilds and guilds, can effectively contribute to it. It is a question of
the creation of cooperatives and estates, which should relieve the state from the
material-economic side and thus allow it to rise to a higher, balancing and ordering, still
purely spiritual and symbolic function. Against the incursions of an anarchic
individualism and of the degrading huckster and wage-worker interests, the old
principles of loyalty, of honor and pride of service, of the joy of an activity suited to
one's own nature and standing, should come to life again, so as to re-establish the
connection between the material and the immaterial side of each individual state. The
higher hierarchical layer would be precisely the most suitable situation for the
realization of an ecumenical European consciousness, which could unite the different
peoples in spirit, without mixing their bodies, from above.

In this last respect, it is not useless to remember again the contrast between collectivist
and universalist (supranational) thought. In the former, the differences are abolished; in
the latter, they are integrated. In the realm of the material they persist - they are only
abolished by their hierarchical subordination to the spiritual part of each member.
European unity, therefore, would be no more compelled than medieval unity to deny
the principle of fatherland and race, provided that this principle remained in its proper
place and made no claim to draw to itself forces whose proper, healthy development
might take place only on a higher level. An organism is the more perfect, the more
divided it is - but it is also the more perfect, the more the parts, which are different from
each other, harmoniously and directly obey a single, free will, independent of the
instinctive and animal element.

It is precisely such unity that should be considered a prerequisite for the directives used
by the pan-European movement with regard to material issues as well, for the solution
of the European crisis and for the formation of a European political defense bloc. In
some cases, the spiritual unity could calmly prevail as an experienced state, not needing
any external regulation. In other cases, however, unity would have to be capable of
dynamically demonstrating its profound reality in the power with which the most
diverse races and traditions could be brought to unity in a single unstoppable
momentum and will. Whether it is a matter of a defensive or a conquering campaign,
there should always be effective in it an urge from above superior to the blind
determinisms of the political passions, and in it the service of an ideal and universal
principle should prevail. The Crusades, through which Europe for the first and last time
set a unifying, universal, free and at the same time organic deed, superior to the limits
of soil and blood, show us such an ideal in a time-conditioned manifestation.

85
Provided that the spirit rises again and a new sense of loyalty is established, it seems to us
that the kind of unified form appropriate to European tradition can be found in the
ethos of the old Nordic-Aryan constitution. We think of those cooperatives of the free,
which in times of peace were like a parliament of equals, of landlords independent
within their own mundium; but in times of war or of a common purpose, and as long as
the enterprise lasted, the landlords and their men were transformed into
unconditionally loyal followers of a single leader.

As for the political, supranational constitutional principle, which today is practically such
an ethos, such a regime of freedom and equality and at the same time of
If the "European" hierarchy could be prepared, decreed and established, this constitutes
a problem that does not fall within the framework that we have set for the present
consideration.

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13 The red flag
From: Der Ring, 1933, No. 52

Grasping the meaning of history objectively, beyond the "myths" shaped by an anti-
traditional and anti-aristocratic culture, instead of the vaunted "evolution," we find a
process of constant decline and progressive darkening, which finds a strange
correspondence both in the Eddic Ragna-Rökkr, the "darkening of the divine," and in the
Kâlî-Yuga, the "dark age" of India's ancient-Aryan traditions. A law of development in the
social and political field emerges with particular clarity: the law of the regression of the
castes.

The hierarchical order of rank, as more or less recognized by all great organizations
rooted in tradition, comprised essentially four levels. At its top was the sphere of a
purely spiritual aristocracy, from which sprang the "divine kings," the "solar initiates,"
who in their dignity of the "more-than-human" appeared in the eyes of all as irresistibly
clothed beyond all others with the legitimate right of command and leadership. Below
this was the sphere of the warrior nobility. In third place came the propertied classes,
the peasant, the artisan, the merchant. Lastly, the serving classes, the simple
unindividuated masses, whose natural function was work as such, the service practiced
in reverence and subordination to the higher castes, from whom they received their
order.

The fact that such a hierarchical constitution often only imperfectly entered into the
historical realization does not mean an obstacle to understand it as a basic scheme in the
cultural development. The idea of a decline of power from one to the other of the four
great tradition-rooted castes thus reaches full clarity. The power epoch of the "divine
kingship" loses itself in the distant shadow realm of the prehistory, so that today only
very few know about its true sense: one considers it for "myths", for "superstitions" or
reduces it to the superficially meaningless catchword: Theocracy. Once these first peaks
have fallen, power passes to the second caste, and the era of the "warrior kings" dawns.
No longer a male-spiritual aristocracy, but only a secularized warrior nobility now stands
at the head of the states, except for the last great European monarchies. A new break
comes with the revolutions and subsequent constitutions: even if there are still kings -
they may rule for appearance, but they no longer rule. Power descends to the "third
estate". By means of the Jacobin illusion of liberalism, modern capitalism takes on solid
forms, to finally merge into a capitalist oligarchy, which controls and dominates all
politics under the parliamentary-democratic regime. Power is thus held by the third, the
ancient caste of merchants, traders, holders of economic wealth. With the Third
International, with the proletarian revolt against capitalism and the bourgeoisie, with
the new Bolshevik collective ideal, there now comes the final collapse, the advent of the
fourth caste: power seems to fall to the mere anti-litigious masses, who now wield
scepter and

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The new universal epoch of mankind is being established under the raw signs of the
hammer and sickle.

This outlines the law of the retrogression of castes. Naturally, this is not only a social
decline, but also one of a certain ethics. If the ideal of the pure spirituality and the ethics
of the liberation from the human frailty were suitable for the "solar" epoch; if the war
epoch still held high the ideal of heroism, victory, rule and the aristocratic ethics of
loyalty and honor - so in the epoch of the merchants the ideal is called wealth, pure
economy (prosperity), science as a tool of technical-industrial exploitation and new
profit, until then, with the advent of slavery, the ideal of impersonal dull service to the
socialized collective being and the universal proletarian ideal of labor breaks out,
accompanied by the degradation of every higher form of activity to the distorted image
of "labor".

In connection with this, another fact can be noted: the devaluation of symbols. Symbols
for the age-old idea of "divine kingship" become emblems of demagogy: the
"triumphant sun" of the Aryan prehistory becomes the "sun of the future"; the "red" of
the imperial purple and the royal emblems is stolen from the "red flag" of socialism and
communism and flutters over the last revolts; even the secret sign of the microcosm,
the ruler-man, "epitome of all powers," symbolized in the five-pointed star, becomes
emblem of the "almighty beast" of Bolshevik proletarian civilization, side by side with
the hammer and sickle. All this is immensely instructive for those who want to grasp the
deeper meaning of history. The usurpation grasps on secret ways even the level of the
symbols.

Thus it happens today that the symbol of the sun, the red flag and the idea of revolution
itself are considered synonymous expressions, when the sun was everywhere the sign of
sanctified royalty, from India and Iran to Egypt, Rome and the Incas, to the emperors of
our Middle Ages and the kings of France; the flaming color was that of the Roman
imperial purple, later of the cardinals, even the color of the Holy Inquisition. The term
"revolution" in classical astronomy denoted the movement of the heavenly bodies
around the "immovable mover" and thus the hierarchical principle itself, the orderly
movement of the various social and spiritual forces in their obedience to the power
from above present in the real rulers.

The red always appears in connection with the sun symbolism, for the marking of its fire
aspect, thus its masculine and active, purifying and destructive, animating and shining
nature side. The cult of the fire (which the ignorance of modern university science wants
to misinterpret as a "naturalistic" cult) was, as known, peculiar to the great Aryan
cultures and especially to their patrician-aristocratic rituals.

A "divine" fire, according to the Mazdaistic tradition, accompanied the tribes of the
aryâ, the "noble ones", and blazed through the lands conquered by them as the "power
of glory" - hvarenô. Three gradations of this immaterial mystical fire - flamma non

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urens, according to the word of the Latins - formed in their intimate connection with a
certain blood the specific "souls" of the three ancient Iranian pishtras, the higher castes:
athravas (warriors), rathaesthas and the lords of the cultivated earth: vâstriyas-
fshuyants. Likewise, according to the tradition of the Aryan Indians, a divine fire - agni
vaisvâreavas - accompanied the great conquerors, who were called "universal rulers" -
chakravartî - in an imperial sense.

Here, perhaps, there is also a relationship between such a symbolism of fire and the
symbolism of the rotation or revolution of the allegorical wheel around its immovable
center in connection with the already touched contrast between the tradition-rooted
and the modern meaning of the term revolution. In fact, chakravartî literally means
"turner of the wheel" - the wheel of the regnum - and by this is meant precisely the idea
of a sovereign principle of stability and immobility, of an immovable mover around
whom every lower activity revolves and who, with his occult and irresistible spiritual
power, determines every movement and order of the entities dependent on him
according to their proper goal. This "wheel", as the "wheel of the law", appears,
according to the same tradition, as the vision of the predestined to rule: in this sense it
has also the meaning of a force carrying away everything, of a vortex-wheel, which
crushes and rolls over everything hostile, low, barbaric, "demonic": thus resembling the
fire, the agnî vaisvâreasvas of the conquerors.

To mark the necessity of permanent victory over the lower elements, not only in
relation to lower races as opposed to others, but even in relation to the human part of
the king himself as opposed to that which makes him essentially king, there has been
associated with kingship the symbol of the rising sun, victorious every morning in
defiance of the powers of darkness, and the symbol of the consuming and purifying fire.
And it is precisely with these symbols of sun and fire, rooted in the most ancient
tradition and essentially spiritual, that the fiery symbol of the red color of the royal and
imperial purple is ultimately connected: that color usurped by the red banner of Marxist
demagogy.

Some remarks still about the red as ecclesiastical and as color of the inquisition. It
seems necessary to make a more precise distinction in this respect.

Our reflections refer to our imperial Middle Ages, which show a double directed
aspiration. On the one hand, there is the Ghibelline preservation of imperial authority,
which urges its restoration in that sacred and supernatural meaning that once belonged
to the pre-Christian and non-Christian idea of kingship, which in itself even included the
priesthood. On the other hand, there is the Guelphic turn of the church, which strives to
"romanticize" itself, to overcome its merely devotional character in a superior synthesis,
and finally, to a certain extent, even to absorb the royal and imperial function (Guelphic
thesis of the "two swords"). It is therefore not surprising if in the one as well as in the
other tradition in the state of the

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In the past, it was possible to find symbols mixed together and often in abnormal
interrelationships, which in reality belong to quite separate and unmistakable spiritual
poles, to which in primeval times the moon symbolism on the one hand and the sun
symbolism on the other corresponded (1).

Red, the royal color, therefore appears everywhere in the "militant" and fighting
organizations of Catholicism: in the "Society of Jesus" as in the Holy Inquisition. On the
other hand, it is absent in the purely priestly institutions. Moreover, if purple is the color
of cardinalship, of the "princes of the Church", this does not prevent that not the sunny
red, but the moonlike white characterizes the Pope, the supreme head of the Catholic
hierarchy.

This circumstance, from our point of view, is all rather than insignificant, for it is one of
those which lead to a point which, in our opinion, is essential to an integrally
understood aristocratic idea: namely, to the concept of the primacy of the royal
spirituality over any spirituality of a feminine-religious and devotional nature (2).

Red is essentially the symbolic color for that, white the symbolic color for this
spirituality. In tradition-bound symbolism, red reveals itself to us again and again as the
emblem of a higher, masculine, domineering state than that to which white
corresponds. Wherever in the historical cultures we encounter a reversal of this
relation, it can be concluded without further ado that here a reversal of the normal
relations is present, as they are peculiar to the tradition-rooted order in its pure and
absolute state: only as a reversal can be evaluated a predominance of the moon (white)
over the sun (red), of the feminine over the masculine, of the light (white) over the fire
(red), which is nevertheless its generating principle (3).

Thus, in classical antiquity, red was the color of the great or Uranian mysteries, white
that of the small, telluric or demetric ones. In Indo-Aryan antiquity, the sun signified the
"way of heaven" or "of the gods" - devayâna -, while the moon (or the "mother")
signified that of the earth and the "ancestors" - pitr-yâna - as those not freed from the
bonds of rebirth.

An analogous distinction can be demonstrated to some extent even in Christianity,

whether in the enigmatic transformation of "water" (white) into "wine" (red) at the
wedding of Cana, or in the equally enigmatic promise of a "baptism with fire and spirit"
(red) beyond that "with water" (white). Moreover, the same hierarchy of symbols
appears, only in far more developed forms, in the ritual knightly investiture, in the
colors of the dress of the neophytes. After the bath, the knight puts on a black jacket to
signify the dissolution of his lowly nature, then a white dress symbolizing the newfound
purity, and finally a third, red dress, symbolizing the supreme masculine power revealed
in heroic deeds, in blood sacrifice for the cause of the spirit. This hierarchy of symbols is
found even more developed in the aspirations of the so-called Ars Regia - the Royal Art -
which, as the direct heir of the secret spirituality of the Ghibelline Middle Ages and the
preserver of a wisdom linked to the divine solar royalty of Egypt

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may be considered. The order of the "transformations" appears here in the succession
of three symbolic basic colors, which are remarkably identical with the colors of the old
German imperial flag: first the black of "mortification" or "initiatic death"; then white,
also called light, day, resurrection, symbol of rebirth; finally red, the imperial color, as
the highest degree, as completion of the "work", "masculine" and "fiery" fulfillment of
the "hero", who after a bath in the "divine water" of the preceding initiatic stage now
receives the "power", "crown and scepter", but thus becomes partaker of solar
immortality, the symbol of which is the phoenix (phoinix stands in Greek in connection
with the color red), which resurrects in the red fire (4).

All these considerations reinforce the proof that the red flag as a symbol, for its part, is
related to the traditional symbolism of fire and the sun, while today it is waved as a flag
by a revolutionary plebs, by the "proletarian", anti-litigious, fatherless, godless masses
that have set out to glorify the pariah and proclaim the ahrimanic gospel of the
omnipotent, mechanized, materialized collective being.

In ancient times, on the other hand, this color was not only a spiritual symbol, but the
mark of a spirituality that went beyond the simply religious. Not only was it an
aristocratic and royal symbol, but also that of an internalized nobility and royalty, not
just the external and tangible. Supernatural, not just earthly and political. This symbol
was and is further at home with us, for though red and white are generally related to
the two great poles of spirituality, the one to action, the other to contemplation, yet no
other color is more suited than red to symbolize a culture, which, like the old Occident -
and a new culture that may already be germinating among us tomorrow - places action
and not contemplation as the highest value, as the way to reach, manfully, without
servility or pious sentimentalism, from mere "life" to a "more-than-life".

If today new salutary forces of reconstruction are at work against the dark forces of
modern social decline, the hour seems to have come to finally break off the top of all
usurpations as well. It is time to denounce the falsifications and perversions to which
our ancient aristocratic symbols have been subjected with the rise to power of the
lowest strata of humanity. Every thing returns to the place marked out for it.

In Italy, symbols that were also peculiar to the oldest Germanic traditions come to life
again: the eagle of the legions finds its counterpart in the eagle of Odhin, and the rod-
bundled axe in that of the Norse conquerors. Is it a mere coincidence that in German
lands the national movement, in its counter-revolutionary victory and its revaluation of
tradition-sanctified values, has reinstated related symbols? The old German flag, now
finally brought to light again, corresponds, as already indicated, with its three colors
black, white and red in its deeper meaning to the three phases of "solar" completion of
the medieval secret traditions. And the banner fluttering victoriously beside it, has

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it did not snatch the red from the usurping hands of Marxism to purify it by means of the
primordial sign of the sun and the "burning-out flame": the swastika?

1. For the complete clarification of this point we refer to the treatise: "The
Underworld of the Christian Middle Ages", which was published in the July and
September issue 1933 of the "Europäische Revue" (Berlin).
2. In relation to such primacy, we could mention, for example, the primacy of the
"royal religion" of Melchizedek over Abraham. In the Middle Ages, royal figures were
often associated with the symbolism of Melchizedek.
3. The reversal of values in question is peculiar to the ancient matriachal and
telluric southern cultures; and it was in the struggle against them, against their cults,
their moral, governmental, and legal concepts, that the great Aryan cultures,
animated by patriarchal and Uranian-solar cults, took firm shape.
4. My book "La Tradizione Ermetica" (Bari, 1931) is dedicated to the presentation
and interpretation of such doctrine.

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14 On the Metaphysical Justification of the Race Idea
From: Europäische Revue, 1940, pp. 140-144

When one has refuted the numerous objections raised against the idea of race from an
intellectualizing point of view, one usually remains which is raised as persistently as its
clarification is decisive for this problem. Namely, it may be asked: All right, everything
you assert is correct - but what is the ultimate fault of a man for being born into a
certain race instead of another? Is he perhaps responsible for the fact that his parents
and ancestors are Aryans, Jews, Negroes or Redskins? Is that what he wanted? With
your race thoughts you persist in a merely naturalistic point of view. You make a fate
out of a merely natural fact, build a system on it and overlook those values where
human responsibility can really come into play.

This is, so to speak, the ultima ratio of the opponents of the idea of race. We readily
admit that this is not a contrived but a serious objection. To take it into consideration is
to raise the problem of birth. From a higher, spiritual point of view, the justification of
the idea of race cannot be separated from the problem of birth and its solution. It
cannot be bypassed in our systematics.

However, it is very difficult to gain clarity and orientation in this question as long as we
proceed from the views prevailing in the Occident after the advent of Christianity. This is
only logical: race and superrace, Aryanism and ancestral inheritance etc. are concepts
which belong to the thought world of pre-Christian Indo-Germanic traditions. In their
sphere, therefore, must be sought the solution of the questions which the present-day
resumption of those concepts entails. Any consideration based on later views of the
world and life can only provide us with inadequate and often inappropriate points of
view.

No wonder, then, that within the framework of the Christian worldview the discussion
of the problem of birth, for example, does not get any further. For reasons which are
not arbitrary, but cannot be explained here, the church had to reject the idea of pre-
existence recognized by the previous traditions: the doctrine that the human soul already
exists as an independent being before birth. In Christian theology, things are certainly
not as simple as this outright rejection might suggest. Nevertheless, it is a fundamental
Christian view that every human soul is created as a unique soul by God out of nothing
at the moment when it is born into its corresponding body. The question why a human
being belongs to this and not to another race thus becomes a theological mystery: "God
willed it this way" - and one is usually of the opinion that the divine will is
unfathomable. The evangelically emphasized doctrine of predestination only
complicates the problem: from all eternity - that is, supra-historically - every human
being is predestined in the mind of God to be as he will appear in earthly existence.

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The old-Aryan conception is a fundamentally different one, and only it makes it possible
to meet the indicated objection. According to this conception the birth is neither a
nature-conditioned coincidence nor a God-willed fatum. But not only that: faithfulness
to one's own nature here no longer means passivity, but the awareness of a deep
connection of ourselves with a transcendental and supernatural, so that it is able to
have a "redeeming" effect. This suggestion, however, must not lead us to confuse the
doctrine in question with the idea of reincarnation. The idea of reincarnation is either an
alien conception, closely connected with un-Aryan, essentially mother-right-telluric
determined cultural circles, or it is the result of misunderstandings and distortions of
tradition-bound teachings, as they can be observed in certain modern theosophical
circles. For the problem to be discussed here only the other doctrine comes into
consideration, according to which the human being is the space- and time-conditioned
appearance of a principle which was there before birth and conception and which
stands with this human appearance in causal relationship.

The area that opens up with it is certainly not easy to explore. The expressions coined
for our earthly existence find only a very small applicability in it. For example, since all
concepts of time refer only to the human existence, strictly speaking one should not
even speak of a pre-existence, and also of causality or causation may be spoken here
only in a very special sense. That principle which determines the human appearance is
the same "I," and yet it is not the same; it is not the simple, bodily I, although it appears
to be mixed or interwoven with it, as it were, and it exists before the life of a certain
human being as well as during and beyond this life, because the "before" here is not to
be understood temporally. Instead of logical terms, one will therefore better make do
with analogies. In essence, every presentation of tradition-bound teachings is symbolic,
even if it seems to carry a rational character for the layman. In order to clarify the idea
we are concerned with, it is expedient to speak of a double heritage. What temporally
does not pass transcendentally to the individual is the inheritance of the parents, of the
clan, of the race, of a certain culture, etc., thus approximately what is usually
understood by "hereditary mass." But all this is far from exhausting the spiritual reality
of the individual, as materialism and historicism teach. The historical-biological
inheritance collects and arranges in a living being forces and dispositions which are
chosen and taken over only when through them, as it were, a transcendental
inheritance can come to analogous expression. Two hereditary masses then meet and
flow together, earthly, historically, scientifically ascertainable the one, transcendentally
the other, and man becomes in this way from a biological entity to a symbol. The
connection of the two components takes place by an event which corresponds in the
old-Aryan traditions to different symbols and which cannot be the subject of closer
considerations here. Basically it concerns a kind of elective affinity. According to it, for
example, it must not be said that one is woman or man because one was born so - by
chance or by God's will, but vice versa, that one was born so because one was already
"woman" or "man". In the manner of an analogy, in this context, one will speak of a
transcendental

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We can speak of an inclination or an act, which we are able to guess only on the basis of
its visible and perceptible consequences for lack of adequate concepts. As it were a
horizontal and a vertical line of the earthly and non-earthly hereditary mass intersect. In
their intersection, according to the doctrine in question, the birth or the conception of a
new being, its embodiment, takes place. What is true of the sexes is, of course, also true
of race, caste, ethnicity and the like. Race and caste thus exist in the spirit before they
are embodied by human birth and become earthly destiny. The diversity has its origin
"above" - what can be recognized by it on earth is only reflection and symbol. As one
became on the basis of his very own nature or wanted to be according to his own
transcendental decision, so one is.

This is in essence the Indo-Aryan doctrine of karma, which was also known to classical
antiquity; for example, Plotinus (III, III, 17) states: "The general plan is one; but it divides
itself into unequal parts, so that in the whole there are different places; and the souls,
unequal also they, take up their abode in the different places, meeting with their own
difference. Thus everything agrees, and the difference corresponds to the inequality of
the souls." Expressed in a word, therefore, birth does not determine nature, but
conversely nature determines birth. From this doctrine, in the Aryan Orient, the idea of
caste, as the highest elevation of the idea of race, drew its logical and metaphysical
justification. The concept of the so-called Dharma is based on it, which may be
characterized as follows: "Faced with ourselves, we stand, as it were, before a
mathematical equation, of which only one link is given to us; namely, in so far as only
the humanly determined appearance and its historical-biological hereditary mass is
known to us; which pre-natal correspondence is appropriate to it, of which entity and
which will it is the consequence and expression, we cannot directly experience, but only
indirectly, inductively and analogically suspect, in that we fathom the "consequence"
and grope our way back from it to the cause. From this the last sense of the Apollonian
commandment "Know thyself" illuminates, which has the: "Be thyself" as counterpart.
From the dark but sure feeling that birth is not an accident, that we are here as we
wanted to be, derives the principle of being faithful to one's own nature, acting
according to one's own nature, developing and perfecting it. In particular, of course, the
Dharma also enjoins faithfulness to one's own blood, one's own caste, one's own race of
body and mind, and combating any mixture, distortion and confusion. In this sense, it is
said, "By fulfilling one's own nature - the Dharma - whatever it may be, one attains the
Divine; whoever instead interchanges one's own nature with that of another condemns
himself to hell."

Certainly, many things can be "constructed", to one's own arbitrariness always a certain
leeway remains, as far as one restricts oneself to the abstract human individual, which
has lost every memory of the "before" and is destined to leave only a shadow behind at
the dissolution of its basis, that is the psychic-organic, body-conditioned unity. But every
"construction" is worthless from the higher point of view - in the consciousness,
therefore, of what the disintegrating organism can take with it into nothingness (hell,
Niflhel, Hades or pitryana: that is, "the way of dissolution into the demon of the tribe") -
if it means a "wanting to be different," if it does not reflect the deeper

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This will is the cause of a certain birth and cannot easily be suppressed by a momentary
and arbitrary decision made at a certain point of the earthly existence. If, on the other
hand, the individual realizes his own nature, he brings his human will, which is transient
in itself, into harmony with the corresponding superhuman will, he "remembers", re-
establishes a connection with a principle which, being beyond birth, also points beyond
death and all temporal conditionality; therefore, according to the ancient Aryan
conception, the Dharma is associated with the "Divine". Dharma - intrinsic nature, duty,
loyalty, blood, race and caste - is thereby connected with the feeling of having come
here from afar, and therefore does not mean limitation, but liberation. If we go back to
this tradition-bound world view, the main motives of the race doctrine also receive a
transcendental and spiritual confirmation, and the objection which is based on birth as
coincidence or fate loses its sense.

At most, the following objections would remain: first, that in life the separation of types
does not practically go so far that the Dharma principle could always find confirmation;
and second, that it does not provide an explanation for why certain human types appear
to be split and burdened with deep contradictions, so that not everyone can represent
"his own type" and does not always feel "at home" with himself. To overcome these last
difficulties, a few words may be added.

Here, too, we want to start from the thought that everything appearing means the
reflection of something existing elsewhere. People are unequal not only as racial types,
but also insofar as not all are equally uniform and "from one cast". There are hysterics,
displaced people, people who do not know what they actually want. These cases are to
be explained partly from the already indicated arbitrariness, which leads to the "hell"
according to old-Aryan opinion, partly however from the assumption of corresponding
prenatal conditions. Beside the central, being-determining will to the embodiment also
other, weaker forces can have participated. The central will is of course the decisive
one, and to it correspond in the human-earthly appearance the features which seem
more than all others fateful and immovable, i.e. everything which is connected with the
physical and biological race and the material and natural condition. As for the other,
weaker forces, forces, therefore, which could not be decisive in this respect, they are, as
it were, carried away; their field of expression can only be the psychic, the emotional,
the arbitrary, the ideal, - a field which, in principle, is not so clearly and so firmly
determined as that of the physical and racial.

The cases where, so to speak, the "race of the soul" and the "inner calling" do not
coincide with the race of the blood, are to be explained metaphysically from these
connections. The more those weaker forces deviate from the main direction, the more
contradictory will be the corresponding phenomena: consequently and symbolically,
people will stand before us in whom the physical is not in harmony with the mental, the
spiritual with the physical or mental, the vocation with the race, the individual with the
clannish, and so on.

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In such cases the Aryan Dharma principle proves even more clearly its active, ethical-
creative nature. It contains the demand for "classical" creation. The various diverging
and conflicting elements of these naturally fluctuating phenomena are to be subjected to
a single brazen law, on the basis of a supreme decision which must not fail before the
serious case. The glorification of the "romantic," "tragic," "torn," and "Faustian" soul is
then considered ridiculous and a symptom of a morbid culture. Tranquility, style, clarity,
rule, discipline, power and Olympic spirit are to be points of reference for every way of
life in the Aryan sense.

If, however, in the world of causes and metaphysical meanings, the existence of
unequally uniform beings and callings is to be assumed, then it must also be considered
that not every culture and every age present the same possibilities of expression and
embodiment to the different "races of the spirit". As we have already seen, two
hereditary masses must always be taken into consideration; the earthly-historical
hereditary mass forms an entity which includes in itself both the biological and the
spiritual disposition, a tradition and occasionally also a caste, a place determined by
time and space, and so on. Now there are cultures where all this is "in order": where life
normally takes place in the highest unity and organic connectedness of all these
elements of the "horizontal" hereditary mass. Other cultures, on the other hand, have
embraced individualism, anarchy, destruction of all difference and limitation
conditioned by race, blood, caste, tradition and ethnicity. From what has already been
said with regard to "elective affinity" it is clear that the cultures of the first type are
those which, by offering the appropriate conditions and means of expression, will
attract unified beings and pure, determined forces and promote them to the sense-
conditioned appearance. The cultures of the second, that is, of the chaotic type, on the
other hand, for the same reason, become a "geometrical place" or meeting-place on
earth for every - if this word is permitted - "transcendental hysteric." If, nevertheless,
normal beings, uniform in themselves, should be born in these cultures, they will hardly
find themselves in their place in them, and will be condemned to waste unheard-of
forces in resisting the contrasts between the psychic and the physical, race and
character, inner dignity, rank, etc., contrasts which are peculiar to these cultures and
make them the natural home for the appearance of torn and confused forces in human
form. We need not emphasize the importance which these last considerations, though
certainly not so familiar to the ordinary way of thinking of modern man, possess for race
thought as for similar doctrines. If a millennial destiny has brought the Occident into
conditions where it is difficult to find anything really pure, sheltered, unmixed, bound by
tradition, the establishment of new, firm boundaries is a work whose beneficial effects,
though not immediately tangible today, will undoubtedly prove themselves in the next
generations along the secret paths which link the visible with the invisible, the world
with the supra-world.

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15 The Age of the Soldierly Ethos
From: The Action, 3/1941

One of the most significant antagonisms, which already came to the fore during the
world war of 1914 to 1918, was based on the contrast of views on the relationship
between the state and soldiering. In this respect, a rift emerged that was not so much
between two different groups of peoples as between two different epochs and cultural
views.

The soldierly in the bourgeois age

On the one hand, the idea asserted itself according to which the military, warlike
element generally has the subordinate significance of a mere tool. In principle,
according to this view, the idea of the "civil bourgeoisie" is the bearer of the state. This
bourgeois element conducts politics, and - to use a familiar expression - when politics
must be continued by "other means," it avails itself of the armed forces. The soldierly
element has no weight or value in either the political or cultural spheres. It is
acknowledged that the military element has its own special ethics and values; but it is
found absurd and undesirable that these ethics and values should also apply to the
whole life of the people.

The conception of which we are speaking here is based on the democratic-

enlightenment-liberalist conviction according to which "true culture" has nothing to do
with the cruel necessity that war is, and that it is rather based on "the progress of art
and science" and the "shaping of life according to immortal principles" than on martial
virtue. Therefore, in the context of this liberal world, one can hardly speak of true
warriorship at all, but rather only of soldiering in the sense of a refined mercenarism. In
fact, the word "soldier" etymologically refers to the multitudes who fought for pay in
the service of classes that did not fight themselves. This outdated meaning had more or
less soldiering for the liberal and bourgeois-democratic states. The latter made use of it
in international relations in cases of emergency in approximately the same sense as they
made use of the police within the country.

The soldierly as the foundation of society

Such a view is opposed by the other, according to which the soldierly, the warlike
element is most closely connected with the political and ethical. Here, the soldierly
values are actually martial values and determining for a general, ethical way of life, valid
also outside the purely military concerns and the times of war. It follows from this that
the ideas of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois spirit are restricted in the various areas
of the state community. On a masculine, active and heroic basis, according to this view,
the true

98
culture, like everything on which human greatness and real right of peoples are based. It
is hardly necessary to mention that in the World War from 1914 to 1918 the former
view was peculiar to the Allies, especially to the Western Powers, while the latter was
held mainly by the Central Powers. According to a well-known Masonic slogan, that war
was waged as a kind of "crusade of world democracy against Prussian militarism."
Liberalism saw in these "imperialist" powers of Central Europe the dark remnants of the
Middle Ages at the heart of "advanced" Europe. Behind this view, however, lies the
truth to which we pointed at the beginning, saying that the opposition was not only
between two groups of peoples, but also between two epochs, although, of course, in
terms of evaluation, things were quite different. What in the democratic-Masonic jargon
was called "dark remnants" meant in reality the continuance of values peculiar to the
whole tradition-bound, warlike, masculine and Aryan Europe, while the "advanced
world" represented and represents nothing else than the world of decay and ethical and
spiritual weakness of the Occident. Moreover, we now know very well how
"imperialistic" in their own way the hypocritical representatives of that liberalistic world
were and are: there prevails over there again today an imperialism of citizens and
merchants who want to enjoy undisturbed the advantages of a peace which is to be
enforced and preserved not by their own strength but by the use of a mercenary force
recruited and paid from all parts of the world.

With the peace treaties and the events of the postwar period, this development
becomes more and more evident. The function of the military element was degraded to
a kind of international police, or more correctly: not a truly "international" police, but a
police organized by a certain group of nations to enforce a certain state of affairs
against other nations for their own advantage. This then meant the "defense of peace"
and "international law." The decay of the sense of martial pride and honor showed itself
thereby
among other things, that all less noble means were considered to achieve this goal
without even having to use this militia degraded to a police force: sanctions, economic
blockade, national boycott, and so on.

Beginning of the revaluation of values

With the international developments which outwardly led to the bankruptcy of the
League of Nations and finally to the present war, inwardly a true reevaluation of all
values is under way, not only on the political level, but above all on the ethical and
ideological level. The present struggle is not so much directed against a particular
people as against a particular idea, which roughly corresponds to the ideas advocated
by the Allies in the previous war. That war was to secure a liberalist huckster
imperialism against any disruption. The new war will put an end to this huckster
imperialism and lead to a new epoch in which precisely the warlike ethos is destined to
serve as the common basis of European cultural developments. In this sense, today's
struggle can be seen as a struggle restoring decayed values. It moves

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a fundamental conception of life and law comes to the fore again, which in the original
traditions of the Aryan races - above all the Aryan-Roman and the Nordic-Aryan - was so
essential that its extinction or diminution always preceded the collapse of the individual
peoples and promoted the transfer of power into the hands of racially and ethically ever
lower strata. Precisely because this new development is unstoppable, we must take care
that no misunderstandings arise about the meaning which the warlike is to have in the
new Europe, similar to those which are deliberately spread by the liberalist opponents
through the use of the word "militarism".

It is not a question of turning Europe into a barracks, nor of elevating a savage will to
power to the final authority, nor of helping a sinister, tragic and irrationalistic
conception of life to triumph. In the first place, it is necessary to account for the fact
that the martial values in the actual military sphere are only a special manifestation of a
reality which has a comprehensive - not only ethical, but even a metaphysical - meaning.
It should only be pointed out that ancient Aryan man was accustomed to conceive of life
as an eternal struggle between metaphysical powers, with, on the one hand, the
Uranian forces of light and order, and, on the other, the dark and savage ones of chaos
and materiality. This fight was to be fought out for the Aryan of the early times both in
the inside and in the outside world and to lead to the victory of the light and the order.
The true, just war on the outer plane was considered to be that which formed a
correspondence to the struggle to be fought inwardly: it was the struggle against forces
and peoples of the outer world which showed the features of the powers which are also
to be subjugated and dominated in our inner being until the consummation of a
"victorious peace" - pax triumphalis.

Warrior ethos as an inner commitment

Thus results a confluence of the true martial ethos with an inner discipline and
superiority, which is always evident in various forms in our best traditions. Therefore,
only the short-sighted and prejudiced can assume that, by professing a warlike world
outlook and by our conviction that the new Europe should shape itself under the sign of
the warlike spirit, a wild and chaotic clash of raw forces and unleashed instincts is the
only logical consequence. The ideal of the "warrior" includes not only the development
of strength and physical courage, but also the calm, controlled and conscious shaping of
the inner being and personality. The sense of distance and order, the ability to
subordinate one's own individual and passionate element to the idea, to place the deed
and the goal above one's own person, a sense of dignity without vanity, are as essential
traits of true warrior spirit as those which relate to actual combat. This attitude goes so
far in many cases among Nordic people that from a higher standpoint combat is
regarded less for its immediate material results than as the proving of such virtues as are
desirable as elements of a special style not only within a certain class specifically devoted
to the profession of arms, but throughout the nation and even beyond the limits of a
single people.

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Decision inward - war outward

This last fact is to be emphasized especially with regard to the struggle for the new
Europe and its culture. The realization of the relation between the inner struggle and
the right war, as it is proper to the Aryan, tradition-bound conception just mentioned,
moreover, preempts the unclear romanticism of a merely tragic, irrationalistic
worldview and overcomes a certain rigidity, bare of light, which some subordinate
aspects of the merely soldierly show. According to the higher conception, which appears
again today among the representatives of the most valid and tested forces, the martial
discipline, like the fight and the victory, is connected with a certain transfiguration and
the participation in a real spirituality. In this way, a new concept of peace is being
formed, which has little to do with the materialistic and bourgeois-democratic
conception of a tensionless, sated comfort: we will gradually regain an understanding
for a peace which does not mean the release of the spiritual tension born of struggle
and martial asceticism, but the calm and powerful completion of the same.

Basically, one recognizes the antithesis between two irreconcilable concepts of

"culture". It is not "militaristic materialism" on one side and "love of culture" and
interest in "spiritual values" on the other. It is rather a certain, essentially Aryan Nordic
conception of spiritual values, which opposes the intellectualist, liberalist and bourgeois
conception of the same. It is useless to make a secret of the fact that in a war-
determined culture the so-called "world of art and science" is given a somewhat
different kind of recognition than in the preceding period of liberalism and the
bourgeoisie. This world has its importance and high rank, but it is not the absolute
essential. Rather, the essential is based in a certain inner style, in a certain form of soul
and character, in a simplicity, truthfulness, clarity and hardness, in a conception of the
world that is experienced directly, without grand gestures and without sentimentality,
with joy in acting, commanding and obeying, in overcoming oneself and in defeating the
enemies of this idea. These characteristics will be the basis for a new cultural community
between peoples, facilitating understanding even beyond many natural differences. That
the world of pacifist intellectuals considers all this unspiritual, if not downright barbaric,
is trivial. This world, in which the struggle, as the father of all things, is restored to its
rightful place within the powers of life, possesses a depth and seriousness from which
the "culture of the bourgeois world" appears like a realm of shadows, like an entity
without life and power. In subsequent times, when the organic formation of the new
European man of Nordic character will have become a reality, the flowering and
maturing of a less vain, but strong and deep culture will begin and will form the new
style in new works.

Foundations of European Understanding

101
Today it is very important to be clear about all this, so that in laying the foundations for
the future understanding of the European peoples one does not continue to insist on
outdated and abstract concepts. Only from the forces which, steeled by the ordeal of
struggle, are legitimized to decide on the freedom, greatness and mission of nations,
can the question of a true understanding, cooperation and cultural community in
Europe be raised. And as these forces distance themselves from the sterile,
intellectualistic and liberalistic culture, so also any abstract law, any theoretical,
anonymous regulation of the relations between people and states is far from them.
Here another fundamental contribution of the martial spirit to the shaping and meaning
of a new Europe comes to light. This spirit advocates direct, clear, sincere relations
based on loyalty and honor. It has a sure instinct for the levels of dignity, which it knows
well how to distinguish: it rejects what is impersonal and unkind. In a warlike culture,
every true order is based on these elements, not on paragraphs and general principles.
And these are actually the elements by which the forces awakened by the experience of
battle and consecrated by victory can be shaped into unity.

Thus, in a certain sense, it is precisely the kind of martial organization appropriate to the
best times of Roman-Germanic feudalism that perhaps gives us a glimpse of what is
appropriate for the order of the new Europe that is being fought for today. It is
necessary to learn anew, in the relations not only between men but also between
peoples, the ability to obey, which does not humiliate but elevates, to command and to
lead, which obliges to responsibility and real superiority. In the place of an abstract,
international right encompassing all peoples, a new organic right of the European
nations, based on these direct, masculine relationships, should take its place. Suum
cuique - to each his own. This Aryan, Roman and Nordic principle determines the true
concept of justice also on the international level and is closely related to the martial
world view. Everyone should have the precise feeling for his natural and species-
appropriate place in a well-ordered structure. Everybody should be proud of this place
and fill it to the best, but the inner moment of the warrior, the breeding, is also of
special weight.

For the realization of a new European order many conditions will be set; but
undoubtedly that martial discipline which only creates the ability to look at reality,
putting aside every private ambition and irrational affect. To it belongs the contempt of
the "comfortable life", as far as it corresponds to the materialistic concept of the well-
being life. Decisive for the leadership selection will be the style of simplicity, boldness
and conscious strength in the common striving to give shape to the new world in all
areas of life.

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16 Empire and empire
as elements of the new European order
from: Europäische Revue, XVIII, 2/1942

Whoever wished to determine the probable essential results which the revolutionary
events of the present war will produce, and which seem to be brought about by the
immanent violence of things and events rather than by any particular preconceived
determination of men, would come to the recognition of something like the following:

1. The concept of political sovereignty, peculiar to the immediately

preceding period, has come into crisis and must be thoroughly revised. The
division of the earth's surface into atomized, completely independent state
territories determined by rigid territorial boundaries is opposed by the idea of
a division of the earth into spaces comprising different ethnic groups and
special political units on the basis of real and organic relationships.
2. In connection with this, the earlier, namely formalistic and positivistic
conception of "international law" of the Western type also becomes obsolete.
In place of abstract principles which, with absolute indifference to the various
possibilities and the different power and dignity of peoples, claim to have
equal validity for every state, there is the idea of a new structured
"supranational" law. The term "supranational," however, is not to be
understood in a vague universalistic sense, but in an organic sense, that is, in
close relation to certain conceptions which will underlie each of the new
spaces encompassing several nations. (See Carl Schmitt: Völkerrechtliche
Großraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte - Ein Beitrag zum
Reichsbegriff im Völkerrecht, Berlin 1941. BS)
3. With regard to such supranational entities, today the term "large spaces"
or "living spaces" has become common, a term which, however, does not
seem to us to be quite appropriate, because it emphasizes predominantly the
merely material moment of the question. We believe that the present war is
not destined to lead merely to a changing of the guard in the system of
European "imperialisms" and material dominations. The higher and truly
revolutionary significance of this war will hardly be felt by those who do not
recognize in it the endeavor to overcome "imperialism" as a purely
materialistic idea of domination, in order to make the basis of the right to
"living spaces" the higher rank which some peoples - our peoples - can claim
over the plutocratically or collectivistically inclined nations - a demand which
corresponds to the genuine idea of empire which, according to tradition-
bound views, has always been based on a spiritual fact and a higher right of
domination.
4. As things stand in Europe today in terms of real politics, only the phase of
gradual formation of "imperial compositions" around the peoples of the Axis
can be noted from this development. The

103
 The fundamental problem of the new order to be established by our victory
will therefore be that of the transition from such "imperial compositions" to
"imperial wholes" or imperial organisms.
5. In such a problem three moments have to be taken into account: the
moment of mutual economic complementation of peoples - which would
solve the question related to habitats (habitats in the proper, material sense);
the folk and racial moment; and finally the moment of cultural unity.
6. That basically the last element is the decisive one already results from the
fact that there can be no talk of a true organism where a living unity is
missing. Such a unity, however, cannot arise from an economic-
administrative or formal-legal system; it would also be problematic on the
level of the merely national in the natural sense, because on this level one
must always reckon with the violence of particularistically determined affects
of the individual peoples. Only on the spiritual level and in real cultural unity
should one look for that reaction which would be capable of turning imperial
compositions into real imperial wholes in the new imperial spaces, which as
such would be able to offer sufficient guarantee for the permanence of the
new order.

When speaking of culture in connection with the tasks of the new order, one should
begin by thoroughly revising that concept of culture which has become predominant in
more recent times - and especially since the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
There is a culture which, on the one hand, is based on humanistic art and profane
science, and, on the other hand, is inseparable from rationalism and mechanism, and to
which the technical and social achievements attach the delusion of an undisputed
superiority. This culture has no face, it is basically international, anonymous and
inorganic, therefore it is unable to somehow create the conditions for a hierarchical and
well-organized order of peoples.

In contrast to this concept of culture, the heroic, aristocratic, traditional and even
"sacral" values should be emphasized: they should be relied on mainly in the
construction of the new empires of the peoples. The present situation is unfavorable in
this respect, precisely because the advent and general spread of the other culture -
internationalist, humanist and mechanist - has weakened and dispersed the values
mentioned. To gather them again in new centers of crystallization, which in their turn
would have to serve as soul and bonding agent for new supranational entities - this is a
task about whose difficulties we must be clear. Thus it would be daring to refer today in
Europe to an idea which would already be complete, alive and predominant enough to
be able to serve without further ado as the basis of the higher work of construction
already indicated. Rather, what is needed is an action of mutual complementation as
well as of revival and mutual strengthening. We are already approaching the idea of a
new European culture - a new "Europe-thought": the elements of this idea are

104
but not yet fully determined, if we disregard only the political and social side.

Since the revolutionary European action has its origin in the powers of the Axis, it is
natural that the primary and essential core of a European culture must also be based on
the possibilities and the spiritual heritage of the two powers of the Axis. As a first task,
therefore, presupposed by every further development and every further approach of
peoples, we should consider the closer determination of the form in which, within the
framework of a new idea of Europe, the Roman (since for us "Fascist-Italian" and
"Roman" are synonymous) and the German elements can complement each other.
History seems to offer a parallel in this respect: in fact, it seems to announce a
conjuncture similar to the one from which the last true type of European imperial
culture - the medieval one - arose, which was essentially determined precisely by the
symbiosis of the Roman and the Germanic element. But in which function and in which
sense can these elements work in the future culture of the "imperial" spaces?

The nature of their former effectiveness in the medieval world is in broad outline known
to everyone. The Nordic-Germanic element worked mainly in the feudal culture and in
the corresponding ethics, while the Roman element, although appearing at that time
already in a questionable connection with the Christian faith, offered supra-temporal
and transcendental clues for a not merely national type of political order of peoples.

Having pointed out this point, we should review the specific political ideas peculiar to
Germany and Italy today, in order to clarify those of their aspects which may be
included as premises of the new type of culture. This side of the question can, of course,
only be touched upon here.

In National Socialism, the slogan "One People, One Reich, One Leader" played a special
role. The events of recent times, however, as well as the tasks which are announced for
the future, seem to lead beyond this in a certain sense. The German slogan alluded to
was indeed determined by a special international situation: the unity of all members of
a single people in a single Reich under a single Führer could be a valuable ideological
tool as long as parts of the German people still lived outside the political boundaries of
the Reich determined by the Paris Dictates. With regard to the task of the European
future, however, it is a different matter, if not the opposite: it is a matter of seeing how
to legitimize the authority and influence that an empire will exert on different peoples
to be included in a single imperial space.

This question leads us to examine another formula in which some authors would like to
see a basic difference between fascism and National Socialism. We mean the idea of the
people's community and the legitimation of the state and the leadership by the people.
Fascism, on the other hand, is inclined to conceive of the people and the nation as
something abstract, as long as the formative, superordinate function of the state and
the leadership is disregarded. The state, of course, does not become a legal function in
this context.

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It is rather understood as the authoritarian organ of an elite or an order in which, more
than in any other part, the "people" appears in a real, living, gestalt-like and self-aware
way. As organically and almost inseparably connected the state and the people, the
leadership and the nation are according to the fascist conception, there is nevertheless
with us the endeavor to grant the leadership a certain independence and its own
consecration. However, the fascist and the national socialist ideology meet again in the
idea of the order or the order-state. The validity that the National Socialist formula
possesses within the empire of a single people remains undisputed. But at the moment
when a concept of political leadership and authority is in question, which is to be
regarded as the central point of reference for an area which is no longer merely national
but supranational and imperial, we believe that a certain enhancement of the earlier
National Socialist formula, conditioned by the European situation already indicated,
would have to be sought. An authority legitimizing itself exclusively through a certain
people will never be able to be considered as much more than mere force beyond the
borders of this people. Things would be somewhat different, however, if one put a
certain distance between the people and that power which, as a state and elite, shapes
and leads it, as it were, from above. One can then imagine a development through
which this superior supporting power is increased and purified to such an extent that it
is able to be recognized in a natural way also beyond the borders of that people within
which it originally asserted and realized itself.

Incidentally, such a supranational meaning of the idea of empire can already be found in
the earlier German tradition. The emphasis on a more particularistic interpretation of it
was only due to accidental circumstances, which, however, are now obsolete, so that
nothing stands in the way of a suitable resumption of the earlier thought. Even recently,
Steding effectively emphasized the special importance of that thought in the upheaval
of the times and towards the "diseases of European culture". In the idea of empire in
question, however, the revived Roman element has in turn had the same effect as the
Germanic one, and it is in this context that the role which the Roman can also play in the
new idea of Europe is to be understood. We are aware of the biases that are nurtured in
certain circles against the Roman. However, they are mostly based on one-sided
alignments. For example, true Roman law is confused with a law that should rather be
called Napoleonic law, marred by a universalism and an abstract normativism that
meant only decay in the organic structure of the former Roman "imperial space." It is
equally erroneous to equate Romanism and the Catholic Church par excellence. One
must certainly admit that Romanism in connection with Catholicism was effective in
shaping the imperial medieval culture. However, one should be clear about what
Catholicism was at that time. The true Roman law was not "universalistic" in the
modern, rationalistic and Enlightenment-Masonic sense, but it was the form of a well-
determined imperial space or empire, which had as its basis an equally well-determined
cultural and human ideal. Medieval Catholicism also referred to a Christianitas that
identified itself primarily with the community of Aryan European nations.

106
This community was conceived as an organic and militant unit, and in it far greater
recognition was given to the ethics of honor and loyalty than to the virtues of
renunciation and universal humanitarian fraternization. The role played at that time by
anti-Jewish thought is also well known.

If we keep to this phase of Catholicism, manly in its way, we can recognize in it some
values which are not necessarily in conflict with the Aryan-Roman and the Aryan-
Germanic ideal. It should not be forgotten that for many European peoples Catholicism
means a tradition of many centuries which cannot be thrown overboard overnight
without destructive consequences. In this respect, a moderate rectification and
selection can lead to the true, common goal rather than an outright rejection. A phrase
of Mussolini's, which aroused annoyance in many circles at the time, is: "Without Rome,
perhaps Christianity would have remained in the state of one of the many sects
swarming in Palestine." In these words a hint is given also for the Catholic countries -
namely, to find again in Catholicism and to emphasize what it contains in spite of
everything Aryan and genuinely Roman, and thus to meet those symbols and ideals
which other European peoples can draw directly from their Aryan traditions without the
detour via Catholicism and Christianity. In any case, it is crucial to realize that a point of
reference will also be necessary for the new order, similar to that which precisely the
Roman - in spite of the Catholic compromise - represented in the shaping of the
European culture of the Middle Ages. While "imperialism" means a system of power in
which one part imposes itself on the other parts which it exploits and administers, the
idea of the empire or kingdom, on the other hand, means the leadership and the higher
justice of the unum, quod non est pars (that one which is not a part).

We would now like to point out briefly the role which, in our opinion, the Germanic
component would have to play, in interaction with the actually Roman one, in the
shaping of the spiritual centers of the new imperial spaces and of the corresponding
empires. We said that in the Middle Ages this component came to the fore mainly in the
culture of life. Today it can have a double effect in an analogous way: administratively,
in the sense of a partial decentralization and division or graduation of the individual
political-territorial sovereignties; spiritually and ethically, in the determination of clear
and personalized relations of dependence among the subordinates and of a genuine
sense of responsibility in the leading elements. For this, it is enough to understand the
formula "leader and followers", so common today, in its deeper, more original sense. In
fact, we can hardly imagine the structure of the new imperial organisms other than on
the basis of a kind of fiefdom system with a central sovereign right and a series of partial
sovereignties - imperium eminens et ius singulare. It may be emphasized, by the way, that
the already adopted formula of "protectorates" basically reflects the same idea: the
feudal bond resulted from the subordination and loyalty - fides - from one side, to which
the "protection" by the other part corresponded. The same idea is expressed in the
relations of the new kingdoms of Croatia and Montenegro towards the Italian
monarchy. However, this principle can acquire a positive, creative value only under the
condition of a new, more normal state, in which the calm, clear and dignified sense of

107
of nationalities will take the place of the bitterness, virulence and intolerance of
nationalisms. In this state, it will be understood again that, both with regard to a people
and to a class or individual, there is a subordination which is not an occasion for
humiliation or degradation, but for pride, because it enables participation in a higher
culture and mission, and obliges the superior to the inferior.

But since we are dealing with relations between European peoples, the expressions
"superior" and "inferior" are by no means to be taken in the absolute literal sense. In
this respect, there is the possibility of bringing the racial moment to bear, with the aim
of approximating as much as possible the substance contained in each imperial space,
so that the division is based more on gradations of varying intensity than on rigid
differences of quality.

To address this problem thoroughly, one must recognize its inseparability from that of
intra-racial selection. Here only the following may be emphasized. Whoever speaks of
race today, by which he means more or less explicitly the common type prevailing in a
given nation (and this is the case wherever expressions such as "German" or "Italian" or
"Slavic" race, etc., are used), cannot refer to primary racial elements in the pure state,
but to völkisch, more or less permanent compositions. In these compositions several
races are given in various distributions, and it would be difficult to name a European
people in which, to a certain extent, one of the European primary races distinguished by
scientific racial science would not be represented. The demand that in the
determination of imperial spaces the racial moment should also be taken into account
should therefore be correctly understood. The decisive factor in this relation cannot be
the factual percentage in which a certain race is present in a certain people, but the
determination of the race which plays or has to play the leading role in this people and
which gives its imprint to the whole. One is thus in a world of potentialities, of dynamic
relations, of spiritual influences. The fundamental condition for a truly organic
organization of the imperial spaces will, in any case, lie in the special emphasis and
leading function of those racial and spiritual elements which, within the peoples
included in the individual greater space, are kindred to those which are represented to a
higher degree in the actual imperial nations. If the two poles of the "axis" are also to be
those of the two larger European empires, then this substance, which is destined, so to
speak, to serve as a binding agent on the basis of consanguinity, would have to be
referred to the Roman-Aryan element and, on the other hand, to the Nordic-Germanic
element, whereby the two elements are again to be regarded as differentiations of a
common original tribe.

We have already considered the meaning and specific content of these two expressions
elsewhere. Here it should only be mentioned that we now reject any further use of
expressions that were very popular at the time, such as "Latin peoples", "Latin
brotherhood" and related ones - Mussolini himself spoke of "bastard brotherhoods" in
this context, and it is significant that by official decree in Italy it was arranged that in
certain texts for the young the

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Replace the expression "Latin" with "Roman". Indeed, "Latin" is a suspect expression
which, if it means anything, refers to a whitewash covering a mingled racial substance
weakened and undermined by processes of spiritual and political decay. The real
culture-creating force of our origins is not "Latin," but simply Roman or Aryan-Roman:
just as this force is simply Nordic or Nordic-Germanic for the peoples of the northern
cultural circle. This at least as far as the aspects of culture come into question which
alone interest us and which alone we can regard as a firm basis for European
reconstruction and the new order.

Now we would have to consider the latent dispositions of the various European peoples
with regard to their possible leaning toward one or the other of the two poles already
mentioned. Such an examination, however, in the present, still dynamic and stormy
state of affairs, would be premature. Many developments are still in full swing. One can
speak of a trial by fire of vocations as well as of the various state entities, which has not
yet been completed. It is as if fate had willed that the European renewal should take
place not from within, but thanks to the cracks and fissures caused by the violence of
things and weapons, and in the process of a tragic upheaval, so that only in the future
will we see whether deep-seated powers have indeed taken the place of superficial
ones, and what in each case these powers are.

This tremendous event will have a really positive outcome only if, in one way or
another, those powers retain something of the formative force which already brought
the medieval community of Aryan nations into being. This is true for all modern
Western peoples, not excluding those who did not experience the Roman-Germanic
Middle Ages, among whom, for instance, the Slavic component is predominant and who
are or were under the sign of the Greek-Orthodox faith. In fact, according to some of its
views, this faith has the possibility of overcoming certain dichotomies between
spirituality and politics more easily than other Western denominations. The resumption
of the ecumenical idea of this faith offers the basis for an organic ideal of national life as
a unity of kinship and religion, of the living, the dead and the law of God - an ideal which
in many respects coincides with that which the spiritual vanguard of our revolutions also
strives for and which even has many features in common with the tradition of the third
people of the Three-Power Pact - Japan.

Thus, apart from Romania, which is now in our front, Slavic and Greek Orthodox peoples
could also be organically included in the future imperial spaces of the Axis. The
condition for this would be even the return to the innermost core of their own
traditions, the rejection of the Slavic mask of Bolshevik madness or the hypocritical,
outwardly democratically determined but inwardly purely imperialist ideology with
which our opponents have deceived so many nations. In the new hierarchical, Germanic
and Roman idea of Europe, these peoples would also find the true focus of their better
aspirations as well as the basis for an orderly and harmonious development of their
potentialities - under the sign and protection of a higher culture which knows how to
respect and protect them.

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Cf. C. Steding, "Das Reich und die Krankheit der europäischen Kultur", 2nd edition,
Hamburg 1938, p. XV.: "In our occidental world the Roman state was the most state-
like of all states and had realized, as it were, in ideal-typical purity, the idea of a
Nordic state: so it can already not be surprising if it is felt to be exemplary: even by
men who think something of themselves, like the Germans of the Middle Ages... A
single glance at the faces of our ancestors, as far as we possess paintings and
pictorial works. should show that the 'Roman' alienation at least did not go badly
with them and that they looked far more manly, denser, self-confident and healthier
than our contemporaries who come to negate a good part of our German past."
Walter Frank adds (ibid.): "Thus in Christoph Steding the inheritance of the Saxon
rebels of Widukind met with the inheritance of that imperial tradition, formed on
the model of Rome, but drawing from the own, state-founding power of the
Germanic tribes, which with the great Charles, iron and bloody as all world-historical
events, forced the fragmented world of the Germanic tribes together into the first
unity."

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17 Europe and the organic idea
From: Nation Europe, 6/1951

The idea of Europe is gaining ground today among most responsible minds on our
continent. However, one is seldom clear about a point of fundamental importance:
whether this thought stems from the need to defend oneself against the threatening
pressure of non-European powers and interests, or whether one aims higher, whether
one strives for an organic unity that has a positive content and its own law. Should the
European unity have only a real political meaning or should it have above all a spiritual
basis?

Most federalist solutions belong to the first alternative and can only have the accidental
character of a union of forces which - since they lack any inner bond - fall apart again
when circumstances change. However, the opposite solution - the organic one - is
connected with preconditions that are difficult to fulfill. We will consider it here in brief.

First of all, it should be noted that the expression "nation of Europe" may have a
meaning as a myth, but from the point of view of a strictly systematic thinking it is not
flawless. The concept of nation belongs in essence more to the naturalistic than to the
actually political level and presupposes the irrevocable peculiarity of a certain ethnos,
language, history. All these peculiarities cannot and must not be merged into a single
mixed entity, Europe. Nor should we be deceived by the more or less standardized traits
of the European way of life. These traits are more in the sign of civilization than of a
culture; they cannot be called European so much as modern, and they are now to be
found almost everywhere in the world. European unity can only be of a higher order
than that which defines the concept of nation. It can only have the form of an "organism
made up of organisms"; at its head and center should reign the spiritual reality and the
superior sovereignty of the unum quod non est pars - to use this Dantean expression.

Organic unity is inconceivable without a principle of permanence. It is now to be

considered how this constancy can be secured for European unity. It is obvious that no
consistency can be found in a whole if it is not already present in the parts. The
precondition to European unity is therefore what we would like to call the organic
integration of the individual nations. The European structure would lack any true
solidity if, on the one hand, it were based on a kind of international parliament, if, on
the other hand, it were to include political systems which, as is the case with the
democratic-representative system, can in no way guarantee continuity of direction and
leadership, because they are permanently and alternately determined from below.

The historical observation confirms this connection. The dissolution of the European
medieval ecumenism began at that moment,

111
in which the nation-states - France being the first, through the legists of Philip the Fair -
denounced the superior authority of the Empire and claimed a new right, each king
being "emperor" in his splintered nation that had become absolute. But it has been
rightly pointed out that this usurpation called another one after itself by a kind of
historical nemesis: within the sovereign nation-states, detached from the Empire,
individuals in their turn declared themselves sovereign, independent and "free",
denouncing any higher idea of authority and asserting the atomistic and individualistic
principle underlying the "democratic" systems.

Organic reconstruction therefore presupposes a twofold process of integration: national

integration through the recognition of a principle of supra-individual authority as the
basis for the organic and corporative shaping of the political and social forces within
each individual nation; supranational integration through the recognition of a principle
of authority which should rise no less above the individual national units than that
above the individual members of a given state. If these conditions are not fulfilled, one
remains on the level of the shapeless, the accidental, the unstable. Then one can hardly
speak of a unity in the higher, organic sense. But here one comes to the most delicate
point of the whole problem. Already because of its superior nature this authority cannot
have a purely political character - which already excludes any solution in the sense of
Bonapartism or a badly understood Caesarism. What then can be the essential, inner
basis of the new order?

Such a basis should be differentiated, because it has to give European unity a face of its
own, because it should provide the guarantee that it is precisely Europe - the "nation of
Europe" - as a holistic organism, distinct from and opposed to other, non-European
ones.

The assumption that this basis can be purely cultural is, in our opinion, illusory if culture
is understood in the common, intellectualistic and modern sense. Is it possible to speak
today of a culture of its own in the European sense? It would be daring to answer
affirmatively, and the reason for this lies in the neutralization (as Christoph Steding put
it) of modern culture. This culture has made itself independent of any political idea, it is
"private" and at the same time cosmopolitan in tendency, it is directionless, anti-
architectural, subjectivist and even in its "positive" and scientific forms faceless and just
neutralized. Only in the perverse sense of leveling "totalitarianism" was there an
attempt here and there in the Occident to assert the idea of an absolute, political-
cultural unity in contrast to this. In any case, it is to be regarded as a sure sign of a
frivolous and dilettantish thinking, if one pretends today that something can be won for
the true, manly European unity by understandings and conferences of more or less
egotistical intellectuals and literati.

Strictly speaking, the soul of a supranational confederation should be religiously

determined, but not abstractly, but with connection to an exact, positive and normative
spiritual authority. Even from the profound processes completed in Europe.

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the secularization of general life aside, there is no such center on our continent today.
Catholicism is only the faith of some European nations. Already in the post-Napoleonic
period, under conditions incomparably more favorable than those of today, the Holy
Alliance, through which the very idea of the masculine, tradition-bound unity of the
European states was manifested, was holy only in name; it lacked a truly religious
consecration and a superior universal idea. If we should now speak not of Catholicism,
but only of Christianity, this would mean an all too indefinite and vacillating basis, not
exclusively European and hardly usable for European culture alone. Moreover, the
compatibility of pure Christianity with a "metaphysics of empire" is questionable; this
has already been shown to us by the medieval dispute between the two powers - if
understood in its deeper reasons, appreciated by me elsewhere.

People like to speak of European tradition; unfortunately, however, this is little more
than a phrase. For a long time now, the Occident has not known what tradition means
in a higher, organic and metaphysical sense; since the time of the Renaissance,
Occidental spirit and anti-traditional spirit have become almost synonymous. Tradition
in the integral sense is a category belonging to an almost lost time, to those epochs
when a single formative force rooted in the metaphysical showed itself in customs, in
cult, in law, in myth, in art, in worldview, that is, in every special field of existence. No
one will dare to claim that today there is a European tradition in this sense, which alone
is decisive for our question.

So we have to start from the unpleasant conclusion that today we are in a world of ruins
and that for the time being we have to be content with substitute solutions, trying at
least not to lose level, not to be distracted by the heresies of the "West" and the "East".
To reject the federalist-parliamentary and "social" conceptions of European unity, to
assert the organizational-qualitative idea within the framework of a hierarchical and
functional system - this would be the first positive step! Accordingly, the principle of
authority should be recognized in its forms and stages appropriate to the various
territories and countries. The supranational European unity should be heroically
determined for the time being, even if it is neither war nor defense. When, at least in
some elites, unbroken men will again be capable of action and thought, free from
material ties, from the narrowness of particularistic interests and nationalistic hubris,
then a fluidity and a tension will be brought into being which can act creatively. For it
has happened in other times, too, that behind such elementary conditions a new
principle has revealed itself, through which in an invisible and powerful way the higher
consecration was given to a great political organism, the supranational idea of authority
received a legitimation and a new epoch began. Then really from the ruins would arise
not so much the nation of Europe as the empire of Europe, averting a threatening
danger of the final decomposition and enslavement of our peoples.

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18 Bearers of the Europe Myth
from: Nation Europe, 1952

In an article published in the June 1951 issue of this magazine, I pointed out the
difficulty of European unification which arises when this question is considered from the
spiritual and organic point of view and not only from the accidental, time-conditioned
point of view of protection against external dangers in the political and economic field.
This difficulty stems mainly from the fact that the word "Europe" does not correspond
at present to a unified, real tradition which prevails beyond the differences of our
continent. We have also pointed out that "European culture" has long since ceased to
be something which, on the one hand, firmly unites us, and, on the other, really
separates us from the other peoples, since the same type of culture has now
transplanted itself almost everywhere. Therefore, we must first start from Europe as a
"myth", an idea which should first be given the power to awaken and order what is still
useful in a disunited world, in a world of ruins. Even if the problem is understood in this
sense, it is not easy to solve, because one has to determine the point of attack for this
idea, so to speak its spiritual "place", as well as its main carriers. Everyone should
understand that the energy of elites must be reckoned with in this process.

In the aforementioned article we said that a unity in the spirit of what has always been
considered the unadulterated European tradition can be realized only through the
"tops" and not from below. The European unity will not be a mixed social mass unit, but
a hierarchical and organic structure as a result of the harmonious working and thinking
of national centers, which, however, in every other respect should preserve their own
character and a far-reaching spiritual and political autonomy. The basic obstacle
encountered in proceeding in this direction lies in the fragmentation of modern culture.
The normal condition in a higher sense, as already demanded by Plato and later not
infrequently realized in history, according to which the bearers of political power and
those of spiritual values belong to one and the same the same state
would be the best prerequisite for European understanding through
elites and "centers"; but this prerequisite is not given today, neither in Europe nor
elsewhere. Therefore, we must work in two areas, which are separated in the present
European nations, in the hope that under special circumstances they will be able to
merge into unity: on the one hand, the understanding between political leaders, on the
other hand, the coming together of spiritual people on a higher, not only political and
national level. As far as the first task is concerned, we must emphasize what we have
already stressed earlier: One cannot think of any permanence of the whole, in our case
of the eventual European unity, if this permanence is not already secured in the
members. Democratic-parliamentary systems, however, do not fulfill this condition;
they lack the continuing permanence of the political will, and they exclude the creative
"center". In the political sphere, therefore, one should start with a national order and a
corresponding vertical structure begin, which sufficient scope for

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different solutions, according to the peculiarities of the different peoples. For this, not a
few overcomes will be necessary, because of the climate currently prevailing in the
European spaces, which are more or less influenced by non-European ideologies or
ideologies coming from a Europe in waiting.

But there is no other way to get serious about it. Now, as far as the intellectual elites are
concerned, the first thing to do is to take a stand against any "intellectualism". One is
very much mistaken if one thinks that something valuable for our task can be gained by
mobilization and understanding of intellectuals, writers and professors from the
different nations. No - the impulses should be quite different, reach into quite different
strata, and touch quite different bearers of the new European myth. Everything that
generally belongs to the bourgeois culture with its individualism, liberalism and
humanism and its hostility to the political-masculine and the political-organic should be
eliminated, since it is not up to the harshness and original unconditionality of our time.

Which forces could then be considered as elements of the new intellectual front beyond
national fragmentation? In our opinion, forces would have to be addressed which, for
quite opposite reasons, are outside of bourgeois culture and intellectualism: on the one
hand, all those who are somehow - by inner commandment, blood or tradition - still
bearers of the old values which were ideologically and politically determining before the
bourgeois revolution and culture of the third estate; on the other hand, the
representatives of a generation which has been brought existentially beyond yesterday's
culture and worldview by the trials, nihilism and tragedy of recent years and for whom
there is no return. Two extremes that should merge and complement each other. For
the first group, people from old European families could be considered; admittedly, not
only the name they bear, but the value of their personality must apply. This double
condition is seldom fulfilled; but there are exceptions, and often it is only a question of
the revival and animation of a covered heritage. Conservatism in the bad sense is not
meant by this demand; it is certainly a matter of "preservation" (conservatio); but a
preservation not of the dead or time-conditioned, but of the living - of values, laws and
modes of feeling which are not merely conditioned by particular expressions of the past,
but come to the fore as character and attitude. As contradictory as this statement may
seem, the reference to that which is bound to tradition only acts as an obstacle and a
reprehensible inertia when one refers to that which has passed away and not to that
which is truly original.

The truly original, on the other hand, has an inexhaustibly renewing and revolutionary
power; this is already announced by the old word: Usu vetera ab imo novant - The old
forces renew themselves from the original ground. This is the reason why the meeting
and the understanding is possible between the few who, due to their blood heritage,
have not broken the threads of the old European tradition, but have stood firm, and the
men of a new generation, which has been formed mainly by the purification of the war.
One has often spoken of it as of the "burnt

115
Generation" (la generazione bruciata). Among them, the distrust of the myths, the
slogans and the ideologies of yesterday and - even more! - of today, and this is equally
true for many who fought on the other side of the front in the torn Europe of 1914-
1945. Where the process has not found its conclusion in a moral collapse, where
inwardly one has stood firm, one finds a new seriousness, a new love for the
unconditional and essential, beyond that style elements, which are the same in the
different nations of Europe and repeat almost the same kind of man in different
variations. This man is characterized by an unobtrusive, simple and slag-free heroic
attitude, especially where he has gained form through the struggle on lost ground and
among the ruins - spiritual even more than material ruins - of the post-war period. From
these men bridges can be built over what separates us, to the formation of a
supranational unity of heroic type - the only one that can lead out over the egoisms, the
limitations and the machinations of the small, fearful European daily politics. It is
therefore these new forces that should be won over by exerting on them appropriate
orienting influences - more by example than by teaching - and by placing before them
the myth of Europe as a point of reference for a loyalty - fides! - of a higher order, which
is able to subordinate, wherever necessary, everything that belongs to the
particularistic, crudely realistic, materialistic and chauvinistic level.

All this will not be possible if there is not a complementary contact between the two
columns, i.e. the remaining representatives of the tradition-bound Europe and the new
forces that have gone through the fire, where the first element has to give the direction,
the other the moving pure force. I believe that only in this way can the resurrection of
Europe, as far as it is still possible, be prepared. But where such a development takes
hold in the various peoples of Europe, it will certainly result in a change of atmosphere
which will gradually have an effect also in the political and state spheres. The "centers"
of which we have spoken will gradually take shape and appear as the only bearers of
unbroken will in our peoples. Even before the 1939-1945 World War, we believed that
action in this sense was possible; it should have been the first to bring into being a kind
of Order as the expression of a new Europe, at the same time bound by tradition. This
aspiration was even unofficially promoted by a great European power. Today the task is
infinitely more difficult.

But we recognize two promoting factors: on the one hand, the pure strength of those
who, despite everything, still remain upright and have the zero point of the former
values behind them; on the other hand, the acceleration of the historical process, which
will soon lead to insight as to which way still remains open, if everything is not to perish
in our country. The Europe which only knows how to debate and play with the
ideologies of a condemned past must be opposed by the union of centers of spiritual
resistance, a heroic supranational solidarity - until the moment when it can also have a
political effect in the formation of an organic-hierarchical unity.

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19 About the mystery of decay
From: Deutsches Volkstum, issue 11, 1938

Those who today have come to reject the rationalistic myth of "progress" and the
conception of history as an uninterrupted positive development of mankind are
gradually led back to the world view which was peculiar to all great tradition-bound
cultures and had as its center the memory of a process of decay, of the slow darkening
or collapse of a higher previous world. If this new and old conception is fathomed, then
we come across various problems, above all the question of the mystery of decay.

In its immediate forms this question is certainly not new. Before the splendid remains of
cultures, of which sometimes not even the name has come down to us, but which seem
to have conveyed even in matter something of the greatness and power of the
supernatural, there is scarcely a man who has not asked himself the question of the
death of culture and felt the inadequacy of the reasons usually adduced to explain it.

To Count De Gobineau we owe, as is well known, the best outline of this problem as
well as a masterly criticism of the most important hypotheses concerning it. His
solution, too, based on the idea of race and racial purity, certainly has much that is
correct in it, only it must be supplemented by some considerations referring to a higher
order. In many cases a culture has perished even with the purity of the corresponding
race, which is particularly clear in the case of certain tribes which are subject to a fateful
slow extinction, although they have remained racially within themselves as if they were
islands. An example closer to us is the case of the Swedes and Dutch. These peoples are
today in about the same racial condition as they were two centuries ago: but little of
their heroic spirit and racial consciousness of that time can be found among them today.
Other great cultures seem to have maintained themselves only in a mummy state: they
have been dead inside for a long time, therefore the slightest push is capable of ruining
them. This is the case, for example, with ancient Peru, that vast sunny empire destroyed
by a few adventurers from the worst of the European rabble.

If we look at the mystery of decay precisely from the point of view of tradition-
boundness, its complete solution becomes even more difficult. It is the division of all
cultures into two main types: on the one hand, the tradition-based cultures, whose
principle is common and unchanging despite the most diverse manifestations. In these
cultures metaphysical, supra-individual forces and works form the axis and the highest
point of reference for the hierarchical order, for the formation and justification of all
that is only human, temporal, subject to becoming and "history". - On the other hand,
there is the modern culture, which is precisely the anti-tradition, and which exhausts
itself in a construction from purely human and earthly conditions and in the total
development of all that is a

117
The world is not able to live a life that is completely detached from the supra-world.
From their point of view, all history is decay, because it shows us the general decline of
former cultures of traditional type and the determined and violent advent of a new
general morality of modern type.

A twofold question arises here. First. How has this process been possible at all? The
whole evolution theory is based on a logical nonsense: it is impossible that the higher
springs from the lower and the more from the less. But doesn't one come across a
similar difficulty with the resolution of the involution theory? How is it at all possible
that the higher decays? If we could content ourselves with mere similes, it would be
easy to dismiss this question. The healthy can become ill. The virtuous can become
vicious. According to a law of nature, which is taken "for granted" by all, every living
being, after birth, development and strength, experiences old age, effeminacy,
decomposition. And so on. This, however, means to state and not to explain: even if it is
admitted that such parables do indeed fit the question under discussion.

Second. It is a matter of explaining not only the possibility of decay within a certain
cultural world, but also the possibility of decay passing from one cultural cycle to other
peoples and taking them with it. We have to explain, for example, not only how the old
occidental reality has perished, but also how it has been possible that modern culture
has been able to dominate almost the whole world and has had the power to divert so
many peoples from any other type of culture and to assert itself even in places where
states of traditional character seemed to live: we need only remember the Aryan Orient.

In this respect, it is not enough to say that this was a purely material and economic
conquest. For two reasons this consideration seems very superficial. First of all, in the
long run, a materially conquered country is also subject to influences of a higher nature,
according to the cultural type of its conquerors. We can indeed observe that the
European conquest almost everywhere the germs of Europeanization,
i.e. the modern, rationalistic, anti-traditional and individualistic way of thinking.
Secondly, the tradition-bound conception of culture and state is hierarchical, not
dualistic. Its bearers could never, without the greatest reservation, sign the "Give to the
emperor..." and the "My kingdom is not of this world." Tradition is for us the victorious
and creative presence in the world of that which is "not of this world", i.e. of the spirit,
but conceived as a power stronger than any merely material and human power.

This is a basic idea of the genuine tradition-based view of life, which does not allow us
to speak with disregard of "only material" conquests. The material conquest, on the
contrary, presents itself as a sign, if not of a spiritual victory, at least of a spiritual
weakening or a kind of spiritual "retreat" in the cultures that have been defeated and
have lost their independence. Wherever the spirit, conceived as a stronger force, would
have been really present, there it would not have lacked the more or less invisible
means to resist any technical and material superiority of its opponents. This is

118
but did not happen. Consequently, it must be thought that behind the traditional facade
of every people that could be defeated by the modern world, there was already decay.
Occident would be then the culture where an already general crisis took the most acute
form. The decay - if we may so express ourselves - became a precipitation in it, and by
organizing itself, it more or less easily carried away other peoples in which the
involution was not yet so advanced, but the tradition had already lost its primal power,
so that these peoples could no longer protect themselves from an action from the
outside.

With these considerations, the second aspect of our problem is brought back to the
first: namely, it is mainly a question of clarifying the meaning and the possibility of
decay without reference to external circumstances. For this purpose, we will have to
realize that it is a mistake to suppose that the hierarchy of the traditional world is built
on a tyranny of the higher classes. This is a modern conception, completely foreign to
the tradition-based way of thinking. The tradition-based doctrine has indeed conceived
the spiritual action as an "action without action"; it has spoken of the "immovable
mover"; it has everywhere used the symbolism of the "pole", the unchanging axis
around which every ordered movement takes place (elsewhere we have shown that this
is the meaning of the swastika, the "Arctic cross"); it has always emphasized the
"Olympian" of spirituality and of true rulership, as well as its way of acting directly, not
by force, but by "being there" over the inferiors; it has finally also used the simile of the
"magnet", wherein, as we shall see immediately, lies the key of our question.

Only in today's time it is possible to think that the true bearers of the spirit, i.e. the
tradition, run after the people in order to grab them and to put everyone in his place - in
short, that they "act" and have any personal interest to establish and maintain those
hierarchical relations by virtue of which they will also visibly appear as the rulers. This
would be ridiculous and nonsensical. Rather, recognition on the part of the subordinate
is the true basis of any hierarchy based on tradition. It is not the superior who needs the
inferior, but vice versa. The essence of hierarchy is that in certain people something
lives as reality which in the others is only in the state of an ideal, a premonition, an
unclear aspiration. That is why the latter are fatefully attracted to the former, and their
subordination means not so much subordination to something alien as to their true "I."
Therein lies, in the world of tradition, the secret of every sacrifice, of every heroism, of
every loyalty, and, on the other hand, of a prestige, an authority, and a quiet power of
which the most armed tyrant will never be able to assure himself.

With these considerations we have come very close to solving the problem not only of
decay but also of the possibility of any overthrow. Do we perhaps not hear repeated ad
nauseam that the success of any overthrow proves the weakness and degeneracy of the
previous rulers? Such a view is very one-sided. This would probably be the case if they
were, as it were, tied wild dogs that suddenly broke out: in this, of course, would be the
proof that the hands that

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hold the noose, have become lame or weak. Things are quite different within the
framework of the spiritual hierarchy, of which we have clarified the true basis above.
This hierarchy decays and can be really overthrown in one single case: when the
individual decays, when he uses his fundamental freedom to deny the spirit, to detach
his life from any higher point of reference and to be "only for himself". Then the
contacts are fatefully loosened, the metaphysical tension, to which the tradition-bound
organism owed its unity, subsides, each force wavers in its trajectory and finally frees
itself. The peaks, of course, continue to exist, in the heights, pure and inviolable; the
rest, however, which hung on them, becomes, as it were, an avalanche, a mass which
has lost its equilibrium and plunges down, with a movement at first unperceived,
afterwards more rapid, to the depth and leveling of the valley. This is the secret of every
decay and overthrow. The European has first killed the hierarchy in himself by
eradicating his own inner possibilities, to which corresponds the basis of the order
which he will destroy afterwards externally.

If the Christian mythology traces back the fall of the primeval man and the "revolt of the
angels" itself to the freedom of will, then it comes to approximately the same meaning.
It is about the terrible inherent ability of man to use freedom to spiritually destroy and
reject all that could secure him a supernatural dignity. This is a metaphysical decision:
the current that circulates in history in the various forms of the anti-traditional,
subversive, individualistic and humanistic spirit - in short, the "modern" spirit - forms
only its phenomenology. This decision is the only positive and determining cause in the
mystery of the decay, the destruction of tradition.

If this is understood, then we could perhaps also understand the sense of those
traditions, in which the speech of mysterious rulers is, who "always" exist and have
never died (transition to the Kyffhäuser thought!). Such rulers can be found again only
by perfecting oneself spiritually and awakening in oneself qualities like a metal which
suddenly feels the "magnet", discovers the magnet and irresistibly orientates and moves
according to it. For the time being we must confine ourselves to this suggestion. A
complete interpretation of such traditions coming to us from the most ancient Aryanism
would lead too far. On another occasion, perhaps, we will return to the mystery of the
reconstruction, to the "magic" capable of returning the collapsed mass to the
unchanging peaks that have remained solitary and invisible in the heights.

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20 The essence of initiatic knowledge

From: Magic as the Science of the Ego, Volume 1

Whoever turns to initiatic teachings must be aware of one fundamental point above all:
namely, that the question of knowledge as well as its meaning presents itself in a
completely different way than in the most diverse areas of today's common culture.

From the initiatic point of view, "to recognize" does not mean to "think" the recognized
object, but to be it. Thus, one does not actually recognize a thing until one realizes it,
and that in turn means when consciousness transforms into it. Thus cognition becomes
synonymous with experience, and the initiatic method proves to be purely
experimental. By certainty here we generally understand only that which shows itself to
me through immediate and personal experience. In ordinary life every sensation, every
feeling and every immediate perception (a pain, a wish, a light) has such a character. To
speak here of "true" or "false" has no sense, because the thing is at the same time the
cognition of the thing, and this under the sign of an absolute and lived "It is so", which
needs no intellectual recognition at all. There are neither degrees nor degrees of
approximation nor probabilities in such knowledge: Either one has it or one does not
have it.

For the ordinary human being, however, such cognition remains limited to the material
realm of perception, which has only a limited, incidental and accidental character. What
man usually understands by knowledge is then also something else: It is a system of
concepts, relations and hypotheses, which has no more experience character, but
abstract character. As far as the immediate fact of experience is concerned, i.e. that
which is directly present in one's own consciousness, one tends rather to take it merely
as a simple "appearance" and to put something assumed behind it, which is then only
supposed to have the character of the true and objective reality. For science this can be
the
"Matter" can be or also the different play of the atoms and ether vibrations, for the
philosophers the "thing in itself" or another of their ideas. For the religion again it is
some divine figure.

In general, this results in the following situation: one builds up a knowledge - the
profane knowledge - which does not go beyond the purely sensually perceptible
experience and which is granted a certain degree of objectivity only when it exceeds
that which has only the status of a personal and living obviousness, of a purely
individual vision or of a sense content realized by the individual consciousness. So there
seems to be the contradiction, according to which that which is pure experience, in that
it has a limited and mere
"appearance character" does not count as "knowledge" and, on the other hand, that
which is considered to be
"knowledge", as such is not experience.

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The initiatic path goes beyond this contradiction and shows a thoroughly different
direction in which the criterion of immediate experience is never abolished. If for the
ordinary man immediate experience and sensually perceptible experience are
completely one, the initiatic teaching asserts the existence of several immediate forms
of experience, among which sensual perception is only one specific one. These forms
always correspond to a certain other way of perceiving reality and can also merge into
each other, tending to form a hierarchy of constantly higher modes of perception which
possess an ever-increasing degree of absoluteness. According to this view, then, there is
no world of "appearances" and no absolute behind it: "appearance" is simply that
which characterizes a certain degree of experience and a certain ego state, and
"absolute" is that which corresponds to another degree of experience and another ego
state, which takes the place of the former through a prior corresponding
transformation. As for the standard of absoluteness, it can be approximated thus: It
results from the degree of active identification, that is, from the degree to which the I is
woven into and one with its experience and wherein the object of that experience
becomes clear to the I as meaning content. And in correspondence of these degrees the
ladder rises from "sign" to "sign", from "name" to "name", until it reaches a state of
perfect super-rational spiritual vision, in which the object in the I and the I in the object
is completely actualized and realized.

This means, in relation to what is recognized, a state of power and at the same time of
absolute self-evidence: a state after the attainment of which all pondering and
conjecture seem superfluous and all discussion pointless. Hence the well-known saying
that one did not go to the ancient masters to learn
"learn," but to "attain," by means of a deep impression, a sacred experience (Synesios,
Dion. 48).

As a result, the initiatic teaching considers it more negative than positive when the mind
tends to digress to the interpretation or solution of this or that philosophical problem
and build up any theories or take special interest in one or another view of profane
science. All this is useless and leads to nothing. The real problem has only practical,
operational character. What are the means to obtain the transformation of myself and
the perfection of my experience? That is what must be asked. And that is why, in the
Occident, initiation is not so much connected with the idea of a process of cognition as
with that of an art (Ars Regia, the royal art) and a work (the Great Work or opus
magicum, the magical work) or a symbolic construction (the construction of the
"temple"), while in the Far East the concept of the Absolute merges with the idea of a
path to the single expression Tao.

This also makes clear that those more or less theosophical

"Spiritual science," which today stuffs the heads of its followers with all kinds of
speculations and phantasties about the origin of the world as well as about otherworldly
beings and realms, etc., apart from anything else, must lead to an attitude that is
already wrong from the beginning. Reasonable from the initiatic point of view

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is only the experimental, practical attitude, which testifies to a deliberate mind and a
silent, invisible action under the sign of the golden hermetic saying Post laborem
scientia (after work the knowledge). Yes, we are even afraid of having to say quite
clearly that in all other things in which today's "educated" man believes he has
superiority and must uphold the right to his own opinion, the situation is not much
better. Education in the modern profane sense is neither a necessary condition nor a
preferential starting point for spiritual realization. On the contrary: a person who is not
interested in the trivialities of the
"Education", the "psychology" and the manifold aesthetic and literary infections has
been spared, but instead shows an open, balanced and brave mind, is better suited for
the higher knowledge than any scientist, professor, writer or other "critical spirit" of our
days. Therefore, those who are really something in the initiatic realm are recognizable
by their extreme restraint in theorizing and discussing. So if they recognize in you a
sincere aspiration, they will only say: Here is the problem, and here are the means.
Move forward.

Another consequence of the initiatic concept of knowledge is the principle of difference,

of inequality. This, too, is in marked contrast to the ideas that guide modern profane
knowledge. In fact, the entire modern
"Education" (with science in the first place) is dominated by a democratic, leveling and
uniformistic tendency. For them, only what is basically accessible to all is considered an
"achievement." Thus, a truth is a truth for them only if all can recognize it, provided
they have a certain degree of scholastic prior education. At the most, they have to take
the trouble to complete certain studies, which, however, leave them as people
completely as they are. This may go well as long as it is a matter of conceptual and
abstract knowledge that can be put into the head like an object into a sack. But when it
is a question of an inner experience, perhaps even an experience based on an essential
transformation of the substance of consciousness, clear boundaries must be drawn. The
cognitions obtained in this way cannot be attainable by all, nor can they be
communicated to all without degradation and profanation. Each stage simply has
different realizations, and depending on how far initiation in its various degrees has
shaped human nature, the correspondingly graded realizations come to it. Therefore,
they cannot be truly understood at all,
i.e. be realized, unless one is on the same level as them and occupies the same step in a
hierarchy that is strictly objective and being.

Apart from those occultist or theosophist messages, which are either way mere
aberrations of the imagination, all other messages and explanations of a merely
theoretical nature must therefore also prove useless when it comes to actual initiatic
and esoteric knowledge. Initiatic knowledge to a
To cut "theory" down to size is the most unfortunate thing one can do. Here, if at all, it
is the allusion, the symbol, that can help to light up flashes of insight. But if it does not
result in the beginning of a movement from within, even that is worthless. Thus, the
nature of initiatic knowledge itself enforces discernment. For those for whom ordinary
life and the

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sensually perceptible experience are the beginning and the end of everything and
everyone, the common basis for that knowledge, which is realization according to its
innermost essence, is naturally missing. All this would have to be recognized with the
naturally resulting consequences in perfect clarity: either to give up at all or to accept
other standards for this truth and knowledge than they have come to predominance in
modern education and thinking. The path of initiation is the path that establishes the
essential differences between human beings and, against the concept of equality and
the uniformism of knowledge, brings back the principle of suum quique - to each his
own - to prestige: to each his own, that is, that knowledge, that truth and that freedom,
as they correspond to what the respective human being is.

An objection that might come from someone who is only accustomed to being in the
midst of tangible things and "concrete" thought processes nevertheless deserves to be
considered a little more closely. He will argue that the transcendental states and
experiences discussed - assuming that they are attainable at all - are exhausted in mere
mysticism, never moving beyond the "subjective" sphere. Furthermore, a cognition that
only knows the criterion of experience and identification is more or less a mere
sensation and offers no glimmer of an explanation or understanding and thus cannot do
justice to things, indeed, basically does not even explain what is going on in ourselves.

Only two points should be clarified here. First: If one speaks initiatively of
"identification," it is, as already mentioned, an active identification, which must not be
confused with a loss of self or a sinking. It is not a sub-intellectual and emotionally
charged state, but a state of super-rational, being-centered clarity. This is the difference
between the mystical and initiatic spheres. And this is a very essential difference, even if
it is not immediately and crystal clear for those who see only a long black night where
neither things nor abstract concepts are at stake, in which for them all cats are gray.

The second point concerns the concept of "explaining" itself, and here the conversation,
if one wanted to go to the bottom, would lead very far. One would have to begin to
return the objection by pointing out that none of the profane branches of knowledge
has ever given any real explanation or will give one in the future. Who understands by
"explain", for example, to prove the logical impossibility of the opposite, would have to
show where, outside the abstract area of formal logic and mathematics (where the
rational necessity exhausts itself in the simple coherence with previously agreed
premises), he is actually able to explain something. We think here of the concrete,
physically perceptible reality - here there is absolutely nothing that is, just because its
opposite would be logically impossible, nothing where one could not always ask: Why
exactly so and not differently?

Ancient traditional science, to which initiatic knowledge belongs, has taken a different
path in its innermost essence: that of knowledge of the actual causes of effects, namely
the forces to which they owe their manifestation.

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This amounts to an identification with the causes within the framework of a "magical"
state. Only such a state can introduce into the absolute cause of an appearance, only it
can explain it in the higher sense, because in it the appearance is collected and it is seen
in its origin.

From this, however, it follows as an important consequence that on the initiatic path
the attainment of knowledge runs parallel with attainment of power, since active
identification with a cause in principle also confers power over that cause. Once one has
understood that initiatic knowledge, initiatic realization actually mean identification and
realization, one will not find it surprising that in some traditional texts, after explaining
the types and names of the deities, one adds that the one who "knows" these names
thereby also acquires one or another power or force. Likewise, one will not be surprised
to hear frequent talk of a "secret" which, learned or transmitted, is the key to power.
Only fools will believe that this is some formula that could be communicated orally or in
writing, if not by telegraph.

Modern mankind believes that the attainment of power also applies to its own science,
because by means of technology it makes the generally known material achievements
possible; but it deceives itself strongly, because the power given by technology is just as
little a real power as the explanations of the profane science are real explanations. The
reason for this is the same in the one case as in the other: it lies in the fact that man
remains the same, that is, he does not undergo any change in his effective being. For
this very reason, the possibilities offered by technology have the same democratic and
basically immoral character as the corresponding branches of knowledge: The fact that
people are different means nothing to them. They are based on a power that consists
only of automatisms, a power that belongs to everyone and yet at the same time to no
one, that is not value, that is not justice, and that can make a person more powerful
without at the same time also making him superior.

But this is possible only because in the world of technology one does not and cannot
speak of a true deed, that is, of a doing that proceeds directly from the I and asserts
itself in the realm of true causes. Being absolutely mechanistic and inorganic, that is,
without relation to the center of essence of the I, the world of technology represents,
on the contrary, the exact opposite of the character of true power, which, created from
superiority, is a sign of superiority: spiritual, indispensable, untransferable. And it must
be admitted that man, with all his knowledge of external appearances and in the midst
of his innumerable diabolical machines, is more miserable and lost than ever before,
and spiritually much more of a barbarian than those peoples of the past whom he
presumes to stamp with that title. He is himself always more subject to circumstances
than he is to them, and therefore he is subject to reactions in a play of irrational forces
which make the mirage of his power, exclusively material and extending over material
things, all too fleeting. He is as far from the path of self-realization as no man of any
other culture before him: because a devilishly to be called illusory substitute of
knowledge and power has taken the place of true knowledge and true power in him.

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This true power, let us repeat, is in the initiatic realm a justice, the proof of a dignity, the
natural and indispensable outflow of a perfected life, and is bestowed according to the
stages of such perfection. Just as in this realm the knowledge attained beyond all
uncertainty and haziness of sensually perceptible phenomena does not refer to
formulas and abstract principles of explanation, but to real entities grasped by
immediate spiritual perception, so also the ideal image of power is that of an act which
does not proceed under the constraint of the laws of nature, but acts above them, not
in the midst of phenomena, but in the midst of causes for phenomena, and acts with the
irresistibility and right of Him who stands higher: Higher, because he has actually freed
himself from human conditionality and attained the initiatic awakening, which is in
truth a reawakening.

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 A c t i o n v e r m e r k

In my opinion, Baron Evola's lecture on the Grail mystery and

the idea of empire is a good work, which testifies to a rich
knowledge of the subject. In essence, his Ghibelline
conception of empire also probably coincides with the Aryan
idea of empire that we represent. Evola seems to have mastered
the literature on Grail and Parzival. Recently, numerous new
publications have appeared about it, which, if a German castle
really was the model for the Grail castle, point most clearly
to the Wildenberg "Mont Sauvage" in the Odenwald.

By the way, Evola published an interesting essay "Die beiden

Adler" ("The two eagles") in the Berliner Tageblatt of
13.2.38, in which he describes his view of the relationship of
the Germanic and the Roman imperial eagle in a significant
way.

From the political point of view, however, Evola's theory, as

much as we can welcome it scientifically, raises some
difficult questions. The medieval empire with the inclusion of
Italy is, after all, extremely controversial in its evaluation
today. Some circles (to which I do not necessarily belong)
reject the medieval empire and the Italian policy completely,
even in its Ghibelline form. The whole confusion of the
situation is characterized by the fact that the papal-minded
Guelphs are consistently contrasted with the antipapal
Hohenstaufen as the allegedly better Teutons.

Bo it is to be feared that a publication of this in itself

excellent essay in "Germania" will cause some confusion among
the readers. Very many of these are still under the idea of a
fight against Rome at any price, where real expertise is
usually not the strongest side. But one must deal with such

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It will not be easy to explain the fundamental difference

between papal and imperial Rome, especially the Ghibelline
conception of the empire. Of course, all these questions are
only marginally raised by Evola's essay. However, his main
idea is a spiritual undercutting of the so-called axis Berlin
- Rome by the old idea of the unity of Germany and Italy. His
idea of empire thus ultimately comes down to a supranational
empire, albeit under the dominance of the Nordic elements,
which I could only support with the greatest reservations.
Basically, it seems to me questionable at all to put our
journal somehow in the service of time-bound foreign policy
constellations, as it has already happened once in the case of
Japan.

Berlin on 22.2.38.

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 - 3 -

German-Italian Society Berlin W. 15. the 3 June 38

"Studienkreis"

The Study Group of the German-Italian Society is

organizing in June in the rooms of the German-Italian Society,
Berlin W. 15, Uhlandstrasse 171/172, (near Kurfürstendamm) a
series of lectures by Baron E v o l a , Rome.

1. Lecture: Monday, June 13, 1938, 8.3o p.m.

"Aryan Teaching of the Holy
Struggle."

2. Lecture: Monday, June 20, 1938, 8.3o p.m.

"Grail as Nordic Mystery."

3. Lecture: Monday, June 27, 1938, 8:3o p.m.

"The Weapons of Secret War."

We would be very pleased if you could attend these

evenings. We would be very grateful for your early
notification on the enclosed card or by telephone (91 71 31).

Heil Hitler !

Your very devoted

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First lecture :

" Aryan Doctrine of Holy Struggle "

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Preface .

The purpose of the first lecture is to highlight those

motifs of our ancient tradition that lead to overcoming the
opposition between the ascetic and the soldierly, the sacred
and the heroic, and to see in struggle and victory a positive
path to inner perfection and transcendent enhancement of the
personality in full dependence on "religious" premises.

By the second lecture it is tried to remove above all the

suspicion that this completion by the heroic nevertheless
flows into the mystical-formless and subjective-worldly.
Therefore, the Grail tradition is chosen as a further point of
reference. In this tradition the first task, - with the
thought of the empire and a fighting order, enters into the
closest connection, with it also with supra-individual and
historical objectives: the hero, who has seen the Grail, is
cursed. Moreover, the Grail tradition was chosen as evidence,
because the doctrine in question is expressed by elements that
are of Nordic origin and, for this purpose, point back to our
common Roman-Germanic-Gibelline reality.

The two lectures emphasize that these are not "dead"

pasts, but rather signifiers that could serve as a higher
point of reference for the symbols and myths of today's
renewing movements.

The occult forces of the world overthrow strive to prevent

this increase and consequently to paralyze the spiritual power
of such symbols and myths. With the third lecture it is
attempted to discover and uncover the main weapons of this
secret war, in order to prevent in advance the action that our
opponents take against the resumption of the main motives of
the Aryan tradition of the deed, the order

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and the kingdom in their highest and unadulterated form.

Baron E v o l a .

Our culture is faced with an alternative in which the

main root of its crisis emerges. On the one hand, we have a
culture without life, an ethics of uncertainty, a faith that
basically corresponds quite little to our way of life. On the
other hand, we have a paroxystic development of everything
that is action, admittedly in a materialistic and almost
barbaric sense. It is hardly necessary to emphasize how, of
these two termini, the second proves to be the predominant one
from day to day. Our civilization is essentially characterized
by action. This above all because the tradition peculiar to
the Occident is indeed a tradition not of pure knowledge or
contemplation, but of action. The action known today is
nothing but a depotentiated action, because it is secularized
and deprived of any transcendental point of reference. Biese
situation springs from hidden causes, hardly suspected by
most. It is not daring to think that, in a certain sense,
Christianity is one of these causes. This faith, which is
neither Aryan nor Roman, but of Semitic-Southern origin, came
- instead of signifying an addition to our ancient tradition -
as its brusque interruption. Psychology teaches how
inhibitions paralyze sublimation and transform suppressed
energies into germs of disease. Analogous is the diagnosis of
the process to which we owe the secularization and
materialization of our tradition of the deed. The Christian
dualistic conception of the spirit dissected our culture of
action. It blocked the way upwards, the way to the absolute
becoming of spirit. It erected an invisible, yet stubborn
barrier, so that in the race against it, the spirituality of
the

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The action, deprived of all transfiguring power, must

necessarily degenerate into fever and mania; it became action
for action's sake or action that is only time-conditioned.
The desecrated action, deprived of any transfiguring power,
had to degenerate with necessity to fever and mania; it
became an action for the sake of action or an action which is
only bound to time-conditioned realizations. From the
Reformation and humanism on, this process could no longer be
stopped.

At this turning point of our history arises for the best

the necessity of a revolt and the return to the tradition of a
again sacral and spiritual deed. Only in this way can the
Aryan Occident find its liberation and receive a soul truly
appropriate to it. Only in this way will our heroic vocation
attain its highest development and will our aspirations for
reconstruction be able to find fulfillment.

Tonight we want to venture a short excursion into a world

that is almost buried under the positivist superstitions of
modern civilization. Our aim is to bring back to light some
basic concepts of our ancient common tradition of action and
its culmination in the mystical doctrine of victory.

First of all, let us consider the "games". For the

moderns it will be surprising to learn that the definition for
fighting games transmitted by Livius is res divinae. The
classical equivalent of what today is sport was something
sacred, religious: it was a "divine thing", res divinae.
Moreover, in Greece and Rome the games were dedicated to
symbolic figures of gods and heroes or to their likewise
symbolically meant deeds. They had in the strictest sense the
meaning of a cult or rite. The fighting games,

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reports Dion Cassius, are held rite facte, ritually. They

therefore follow a strict and unchanging tradition. The
slightest violation entailed the necessity of repeating them,
in order to avoid that divine forces could turn against the
city in a disastrous way; moreover, Rome was convinced that
the neglect of the sacra certamina, the sacred combat games,
would provoke a grave danger. In moments of public misfortune
or political danger, the games were performed almost in the
sense of an incantation rite.

The leaders of the Roman games were originally always

strict priestly figures. No profane performances were tolerated
in the circus, but they took place under the sign of the altars
and temples dedicated to the great Aryan gods.
The solemn procession with which the games were introduced was
similar to the procession of the triumphants themselves. The
symbols of the supreme Capitoline gods were carried into the
circus, as if to symbolize their invisible presence, which,
moreover, found its mystical expression also in the presence
of empty chairs. The victorious military leaders, for their
part, went from the Capitol to the circus to celebrate the
games. Thus, the games prove to be closely related to the
mystical and sacred, as well as to the heroic and triumphant
element.

Ancient man experienced secret and divine forces behind

the physical world, behind human thoughts and instincts,
behind colli ctivities and great historical destinies. The
rite was not for him an empty and formalistic ceremony. The
rite was for the tradition-bound man an objective spiritual
technique, effective to act on these forces, to unleash them,
to subdue them or to guide them in certain directions. This

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Background is not to be addressed as superstition, but it is

conditioned by a transcendent and super-religious realism.
From this background, the secret meaning of the fighting games
also stands out tangibly.

The fighting games became in their deeper meaning a rite

of formerly heroic character. They were a method to unleash
divine powers by means of a certain action or to renew in the
collective consciousness the presence and effectiveness of
divine powers. It is not surprising, then, that mystical
numbers and symbols are so prevalent, even in the
architectural structure of circuses and racetracks, that their
tangible materiality is adapted to superordinate meanings.
Deep down, at the altar dedicated to the deity Consus, a
subterranean entity full of greedy expectation of the blood
spilled at the fighting games, there was a kind of
breakthrough point of subterranean powers. Above, on the other
hand, the statues crowned by goddesses of victory and Olympian
deities, and in their midst the symbols of the solar flame,
embodied the opposite principle, the truly divine power. Thus,
a physical matter - be it unconscious - was elevated to a
symbolic and supernatural level. The circus was thus
transformed into a fateful center, so to speak, - Tertullian
says impressively: into a council of gods. Analogies created
mysterious connections. The victor could thus appear clothed
with divine character, if not downright as the momentary
incarnation of a hero or a god. If we pass from the Aryan-
Roman traditions to the Hellenic ones, we would only like to
remind that in Olympia the Olympic games were considered to be
founded by Heracles, as a reminder of a metaphysical struggle,
of the struggle and victory of the Olympic powers over the
Titanic ones. At the moment of triumph, the victor was called
the

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a revelation of the Olympian god, from Zeus himself.

With this we have approached the leading point of our

considerations. In the ancient traditions, the heroic
intoxication and victory appeared as a path to inner
exaltation, analogous to that taught by the classical
mysteries, according to which, in the initiated, death is
transformed into resurrection. In this sense, the games, far
from being an expression of superstition, could solemnly
recall the deeds of gods and demigods: the ancient funerary
art, accordingly, often used as material the figures of
Olympic victors and triumphant warriors to express the
confidence of the deceased in a perfect and indestructible
life beyond. On this basis, the already indicated conception
of the fighting games as a heroic rite, as a method for the
awakening and renewal of superhuman powers, which were
perceived by the communities of the people as decisive for
their destinies and their greatness, becomes also
understandable. In Rome, a whole series of games had the very
purpose of renewing the Victoria of Caesar, who was conceived
as an entity endowed with independent and indestructible life.

Let us now proceed to a second and higher manifestation

of the spiritual tradition, as far as it has relation to the
action. We have to speak shortly of the war as a "holy war".
It is difficult to deny a metaphysical justification and
transcendent intention to the bloody undertakings and
conquests of all ancient Arab peoples. In the tradition-based
worldview, every reality becomes a symbol. This also applies
to war. On this basis, war and "God's way" could not
infrequently merge into one and the same thing.

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Everyone is familiar with the characteristic testimonies

that the Nordic-Germanic tradition offers us in this respect.
As is generally known, Valhalla is the seat of heavenly
immortality, reserved for the "freemen" of divine descent and
for the heroes fallen on the battlefield. The lord of this
place, Odhin-Wotan, is presented to us in the Ynglinga saga as
the one who, with his symbolic sacrifice on the world tree
Yggdrasil, has shown the heroes the way leading up to the
divine abode where eternal life blossoms,- as on a shining
mountain top glittering above the clouds. According to this
tradition, no sacrifice or cult is more pleasing to the
supreme God, none bears richer supramundane fruits than that
sacrifice which the hero makes by falling fighting on the
battlefield.

But even more: through the heroes, who offer a falling

sacrifice to Odhin, the crowd of those is strengthened, whose
this god needs for the last fight against ragna-rökkr, i.e.
against the doom of the darkening of the divine, which lies
threatening over the world since distant times. In the Edda it
says: "However great the number of heroes gathered in
Valhalla, there will never be enough of them when the wolf
will come forth." - The wolf is here the symbol of dark and
wild powers, which the culture of the Aesir originally
succeeded in subduing and subjugating.

Analogous is the Iranian-Aryan teaching of Mithra, the

"warrior without sleep", who fights at the head of the
fravashi, i.e. the transcendental parts of his faithful,
against the enemies of the Aryan faith. We will have to go
into more detail about the fravashi, who basically correspond
to the Valkyries of the Nordic tradition. First, however, we
would like to clarify the general concept of the "holy fight"
by means of three further testimonies, which we have taken
from the

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The following table shows the most important sources of

information on the subject: Islamic tradition, medieval crusader
tradition, and Indo-Aryan tradition.

As far as the Islamic tradition is concerned, it must be

emphasized immediately that the idea of the Holy War is
originally Persian, that is, of Aryan origin, and was adopted
only later by the Arab tribes. Having said this, the Islamic
tradition distinguishes two holy wars: one is the Great Holy
War, the other the Minor Holy War. This distinction stems from
a saying of the Prophet who, on his return from a warlike
enterprise, said: "From the small we have returned to the
great Holy War." The great holy war belongs to the spiritual
order. The minor Holy War, on the other hand, is the material
struggle, the physical war fought in the external world
against an enemy people, especially the infidels, the
unrighteous, or the barbarians. The great Holy War is the
struggle of man against the enemies he carries within himself.
More precisely, it is the struggle of the supernatural element
in man against all that is libidinal, passionate, in bondage
to the forces of nature. In this sense, in a text of Aryan
warrior wisdom, in the Bhagavad-gitâ, it is said: "By the
realization of that which is beyond the mind, affirm yourself
by yourself and kill the enemy in the form of the desire which
is difficult to defeat." The precondition for the inner work
of liberation is that such an enemy, the "unbeliever" and the
"barbarian" in us, is annihilated.

Within the framework of a heroic tradition, however, the

small holy war is understood only as an external struggle,
only as a way through whose mediation precisely this great
holy war is to be realized. For this reason, in Islam

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"Holy war" and "way of God," jihad, often appear as synonyms.

Thus we read in the Koran: "Fighting in the way of God -.
i.e. in the Holy War - those who sacrifice the earthly life to
the future: for to him who fights in the way of God and is
killed, or to him who conquers, we will pay a high price". And
further, "And those who are killed in God's way - never does
he guide their works astray. He will guide them and give peace
to their hearts. And he will bring them into paradise, which
he has made them to know". Here the physical death in war is
alluded to, to which the so-called Mors Triumphalis, the
"victorious death", of the classical traditions corresponds
exactly. But the same doctrine can also be understood in a
symbolic sense. The one who has been able to experience a
"great holy war" in a small war has generated a power within
himself that enables him to conquer the crisis of death. But
even without having been physically killed, one can experience
death, one can have triumphed and realized an "Ueberleben".
"Paradise", "Heavenly Kingdom" and similar designations are in
reality nothing else than symbolic symbolizations of
transcendent states of consciousness, on a higher level than
life and death.

These considerations may also be considered as a premise

to find the same meaning under the outer Christian garment,
which the heroic northern occidental tradition was forced to
throw over in the crusades, in order to be able to appear
outwardly.

Much more than one is generally inclined to believe, in

the crusading ideology the liberation of the temple, the
conquest of the Holy Land had points of contact with the
Nordic-Aryan tradition, which refers to the mystical Asgard,
to the distant land of the Aesir and heroes, where death

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and where the inhabitants enjoy immortal life and supernatural

peace. The Holy War appeared as a thoroughly spiritual war, so
that it could be literally compared by the preachers with a
"purification, as it were the fire of the Purgatory even
before death". - What glory for you to come out of the battle
crowned with nothing but laurels. But how much greater the
glory of winning an immortal crown on the battlefield," - so
spoke to the Templars a Bernard of Clairvaux. The "absolute
glory* - the same that was attributed to the Lord in heavenly
heights, in excelsis Deo, by theology - was also promised to
the crusader. On this basis, Jerusalem, the dreamed goal of
the "little Holy War," presented itself in a double aspect, as
an earthly city and as a heavenly city, and the Crusade as a
prelude to a truly immortal achievement.

The military vicissitudes of the Crusades at first caused

surprise and confusion. But then they had only the effect of
purifying the idea of war from any residue of materiality. The
unfortunate course of a crusade was compared to virtue pursued
by misfortune, the value of which can be judged and rewarded
only in relation to a non-earthly life. Thus, a point of view
was taken that was above victory as well as defeat, and that
concentrated every value judgment on the ritual side of the
deed. The true focus was thus on holy war, regardless of its
visible results, as a means of achieving immortalizing glory
from the active sacrifice of the human element. The dualism of
victory and virtue here is naturally influenced by the general
dualism inherent in the Christian faith. Nevertheless, in this
attitude a higher point of view breaks through again, which
has its root and

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 - 15 -

has its logical place not in Christianity but in the heroic

reality of Aryan antiquity.

To this reality belongs the tradition as it appears in an

Indo-Aryan text, the Bhagavad-gitâ.

The same doctrine gains a metaphysical basis here.

The pity that prevents the warrior Arjuna from going to the
field against the enemy is called by the god: "Cowardice,
unworthy of a noble and distant from heaven". The promise is:
"Killed, - you will have the paradise, victorious, - you will
have the earth. Therefore, rise resolutely to the battle." The
inner orientation, capable of transforming the small war into
the great Holy War, into death and triumphant resurrection, is
clearly circumscribed: "By consecrating every action to me,"
says the God, "with the spirit dwelling in the highest state
of I, far from every thought of possession, freed from the
fever of the spirit, fight!" In equally clear terms it says of
the purity of this action: it must be willed for its own sake,
beyond any empirical purpose, any passion, any human impulse.
"By equating pleasure and suffering, advantage and loss,
victory and defeat in value, arm yourself for the battle: in
this way you will not incur any stain.

As a further metaphysical justification the God explains

the difference between that what is absolute spirituality and
as such indestructible - and that what as physical and human
element has only illusory existence. With the consciousness of
the metaphysical unreality of what one can lose as transient
life and mortal body, or by which one can cause the loss in
others, the knowledge of that manifestation of the divine is
connected, according to which it is a power that travels with
itself in irresistible absoluteness. Compared to the greatness
of this power

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every conditioned form of existence appears as negation.

Therefore, this power reaches terrible revelation wherever
this negation is actively negated, that is, wherever in the
onslaught every limited existence is torn away or destroyed.
Individuals are subject to becoming, to transformation, to
disappearance, precisely because there blazes within them a
power that transcends them, a power that wants infinitely more
than what they can ever want. On this basis, it is possible to
circumscribe more precisely the energy that is capable of
bringing about the heroic transformation. Values are
transformed into their opposite: death becomes assertion of
life. The sacred warrior appears as a manifestation of the
divine, as a metaphysical force of destruction of the finite.
He actively draws this force upon himself, transfiguring and
liberating himself in it by breaking the bonds of the human.
The suggestive statements of another text, but belonging to
the same tradition, read: "Life like a bow; the soul like an
arrow; as the target to be pierced - the absolute spirit. To
connect with this spirit as the swift arrow bores into its
target. In short, this is the metaphysical justification of
war, the transformation of the small war into the great holy
war, as it was familiar to the heroic Indo-Aryan world.

Thus all conditions are given to advance also to the

understanding of the innermost content, which underlies a
group of classical and Nordic traditions, culminating in the
mystical doctrine of victory. As a starting point we may use
the observation that in classical and Indo-European antiquity
in general several ideas appear in a peculiar mixture: the
idea of the soul as a demon and "double"; the idea of a
goddess of death; finally the idea of a goddess of victory. In
other words, it is a question of

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around the idea of a single being who is both goddess of

battle and victory, as well as embodying the transcendental
element of the soul.

Let's try to reach a spiritual understanding of these

different elements. First of all, it is necessary to examine
the meaning of the "demon" or "genius" or "double", and in
which relation to the human soul these beings were thought.
The key to this is already given in our interpretation of that
deep-lying power, towards which the human existence is nothing
but mere negation. It is only to be added that this force in
one side of its unfolding was conceived as formative energy.
The demon is similar to the "lares" of whom Macrobius says:
"They are the gods who keep us alive. They nourish our bodies
and regulate our souls." Ancient man saw in the demon or
double a deep-seated power which secretly directs all those
bodily and psychic processes to which ordinary consciousness
does not reach, but which nevertheless condition our existence
and destiny. It may be said that between the double and the
ordinary consciousness there is a relation like that between
the individuating and the individuated principle. According to
the teachings of the ancients, the first is a supra-individual
force, therefore superior to birth and death.
The second principle is subject to dissolution in the normal
way. It is remarkable the circumstance that in the Nordic
tradition the conception of the Valkyrie merges with that of
the fyljgya, i.e. with a spiritual entity working in man, to
whose power his fate is entrusted. The same applies to the
frawashi of the Iranian-Aryan tradition. The frawashi -
Darmesteter explains - is the innermost power of every being,
is that which sustains it and causes it to be born and to
exist. At the same time the frawashi, like the

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Valkyries, terrible goddesses of war, who bestow happiness and

victory. Let us dwell for a moment on this equation.

It is known that the Indo-European antiquity possessed a

distinctly aristocratic conception of immortality. Not all of
them escape the dissolution of salvation, the extinct illusory
existence in Hades and Niflheim. Immortality is a privilege of
a few, and essentially a heroic privilege. An afterlife not as
a shadow but as a demigod is granted only to those whom a
special spiritual deed has elevated from one nature to the
other. Here, unfortunately, we cannot cite all the evidence
that urges to the following conclusion: in the technical
sense, such a spiritual act consisted, according to the
ancient traditions, in a transformation of the sense of self
from the ordinary human consciousness, limited and
individuated, to a deep, supra-individual, individuating power
that stands beyond life and death, and of which we have said
that the concept of the "demon" corresponds to it.

But the demon transcends each of the finite forms in which

it manifests itself. Therefore, the brusque transition from
the ordinary ego state to the "demonic" state has the meaning
of a destructive crisis: like a lightning strike due to a
potential that is stretched too high. Such a destruction and
crisis actually takes place through death. Let us now suppose
that under quite exceptional circumstances the demon can, so
to speak, burst into us and thus make us feel its destructive
transcendence; then one would have a kind of active experience
of death, and it now becomes clear why the figure of the
double or demon in the ancient conceptions could merge with
the deity of death. In the Nordic tradition sees

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the warrior his Valkyrie precisely at the moment of death or

mortal danger.

Let's go further. If in religious asceticism,

mortification, renunciation of one's own ego, elan of devotion
to God are the preferred means with the help of which one
undertakes to successfully overcome the crisis just indicated,
then in the framework of a heroic tradition, on the other
hand, the way to this goal is the active upsurge, the
unleashing of the gate element. As a lower manifestation of
this element we see thus
For example, the dance was used as a sacred method to evoke
and apply deeper forces through the ecstasy of the soul. Into
the life of the individual unleashed to Dionysian rhythm
another life sank in, as it were as the emergence of its
abysmal root. Furies, Erinyes and other wild spiritual natures
are the ancient symbolic visualizations of this force. They
therefore correspond to a manifestation of the demon,
according to its terrible and active transcendence. On a
higher level are just the sacral fighting games. Still higher
is the war. On the clairvoyant summit of danger and the heroic
battle swing the possibility of such an experience was
recognized. Seeing the expression ludere, play, fight
contains, according to Brugmann, the idea of solving. This is
an allusion to the power inherent in combat to release deeper
hidden forces from individual limitation and let them emerge
freely. From this arises the reason for the second equation.
The demon and the goddess of death are not only identical with
the furies, erinyes and other unleashed Dionysian entities,
they are also equivalent to the storm maidens of the battles.
The frawashi are called "the terrible ones, the almighty
ones," "those who attack in the storm and give victory to the
one who invokes them."

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The same entity finally takes the form of the goddess of

victory. This last metamorphosis marks the happy completion of
the inner experiences described.
Just as the demon or double signifies a deeper power in its
latent state vis-à-vis ordinary consciousness, just as the
furies and erinyes reflect a particular manifestation of
demonic unleashing and outbursts - so too the goddess of
victory is the expression of triumph over that power. She
signifies the victorious upsurge to a state beyond the danger
of ecstasies and subpersonal forms of decomposition, a danger
that always lurks behind the frenetic moment of Dionysian
action. It means the upswing to a spiritual state that makes
free, immortal, inwardly indestructible.

But where the deeds of the spirit express themselves by

deeds and real facts, there it results that really the
physical corresponds to the metaphysical, the visible to the
invisible. Such spiritual deeds then show themselves to us as
the secret soul of warlike undertakings, the crowning of which
is the real and actual victory. The material military victory
then becomes a mere correspondence for a spiritual fact, which
has conditioned the victory there, where exterior and interior
are connected. The victory thus appears as a tangible sign of
an initiation and mystical rebirth that took place in the same
point. The furies and death, which the warrior has withstood
materially on the battlefield, meet him also inwardly, in the
spiritual, in the form of a perilous upheaval of the deepest
reasons of his being. By triumphing over these, the victory is
his. And the glory that then surrounds him is not an empty
sound, but a real power, a metaphysical revelation, an
illumination of the supreme world.

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This explains why, in ancient traditions, every victory

acquired a sacred meaning. Thus, the emperor, acclaimed on the
battlefields, offered the experience of the brusque presence
of a mystical power that transformed him. Thus, at last, the
deep, by no means theoretical sense of a supernatural
character breaking through in the glory and divinity of the
victors can be grasped. From Nike, the goddess of victory, the
Doric hero Heracles receives the wreath that makes him partake
of Olympic immortality. If the souls of the heroes are led to
the seat of immortality by the valkyries - the valkyries were
understood at the same time as those forces which scare the
enemy with panic - they are also the ones who determine the
final victory. Mystical theology teaches that in glory the
beatific spiritual vision takes place, and Christian
iconography surrounds the heads of saints and martyrs with the
aureole of glory. All this, however, means an atrophied
inheritance of our highest heroic tradition. The Iranian-Aryan
tradition already knew the glory, understood as heavenly fire,
which descends on kings and leaders, makes them immortal and
bears witness to them in victory. And the ancient royal crown
of rays symbolized precisely the glory as a sunlike and
heavenly mystical fire If one examines the deepest meaning of
the conception of the test of arms peculiar to chivalry as a
judgment of God, one discovers the same conception: the
victory synonymous with a supernatural sign of truth, justice,
right. By virtue of the same thought, in Rome the ceremony of
triumph had a far more sacred than military character. The
triumphator went to the temple of the luminous Capitoline sky-
god to place in his hands the laurel of victory, expressing
that the true creator of victory was not so much the human and
mortal part of the victor as the

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a transcendent element, more than personal, which makes him

equal to that of God. For this reason, in the ceremony of
triumph, the victor clothed himself with all the emblems and
symbols proper to the deity. Light, sunlike splendor, glory,
victory, divine kingship are ideas that appear in the
classical and Indo-European world in the closest connection.
In this sense, the mystical doctrine of victory is for us a
luminous culmination of our common deed tradition.

This tradition still speaks to us audibly today.

This tradition presents us today with the alternative:
loyalty or betrayal. We can only repeat here the words we
placed at the entrance of this excursion into the old heroic
world. - Today we are faced with the imperious need to
overcome - be it a tired, anemic spirituality formed by pious
feelings or abstract speculation - or be it the materialistic
degeneration of the act. Even if the external and time-
conditioned manifestations of the old-Aryan tradition of
deeds belong to the past, the spirit inherent in it is still
alive today and may claim a supreme right over the old and
newly created idols.

Above all: it must return to new life the ideal of a

force which is at the same time spirit; of a victory which is
at the same time transfiguration and enlightening glory. May a
barbaric civilization continue to intoxicate itself with the
animal-activist and mechanical ideal of life - all this does
not interest us, does not concern us.

War: let us say it with a loud voice: war should be for us

neither a cruel slaughter, nor a sad necessity, but the way to
a higher

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way of life and the test of the divine mission of a people.

For the ancient Aryan, by the way, every war was the
parable of an eternal struggle between metaphysical powers: on
one side there was brute force, the Titanic-Tellurian, the
barbaric in the classical sense, the feminine-demonic. We have
already had the opportunity to emphasize that our culture
today is experiencing years of decision, the ultimate meaning
of which is in the closest connection with such a realization.
After the collapse of our old Europe, after the rationalistic
and individualistic devastations and all that the revolt of
the masses and the demoniac of materialized collectivism have
brought about in every field up to the final point of
Bolshevism, dark forces are today preparing for the final
attack. To these forces correspond most exactly the ideas of
the ancient Aryans concerning the subterranean forces,
opposite to which, in the symbolism of the holy struggle,
stood the solar principle of order with its militia.
This realization and this metaphysical dualism shall be called
to new life today and give the final meaning to our heroic
vocation. A new front shall be formed and gather all those who
still stand firm and are bearers of tradition. From distant
times still sounds the suggestive formula: Life, like a bow;
the soul, like an arrow; the target to be hit: the highest
spirit. Let this be the watchword of the new Holy War, the
principle of an irresistible, heroic and, as it were,
metaphysical momentum. It is not a paradox: perhaps never have
our ancient myths of the final decision and the last battle,
of the newly awakening heroic throng in the struggle against
the encroaching demon of the mass world, the sunny tradition
of the deed and the mysticism of victory been so intensely
current as they will be in the times to come; in the times,

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that will shape the entire European-Western destiny.

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Second lecture :

" Grail as a Nordic mystery "

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In one form or another, in all the great traditions of

antiquity, and especially in the Indo-European ones, there
recurs again and again the idea of a mighty world ruler; of an
invisible empire surpassing all visible kingship; of a place
which in a higher sense has the significance of a pole, an
axis, an immutable center, and which is pictured as a solid
land in the middle of the ocean of life, as a sacred,
inviolable region, as a land of light or "sun-land."

Metaphysical meanings, symbols and dark memories are

spun into a single fabric. The idea of the Olympic kingship
and the heavenly mission rises up. The tradition-bound
principle reads: "He who rules by virtue of (heavenly) virtue
resembles the pole star. Unchanging, he lingers in his place
while everything else circles around him."

The thought of the world king, conceived as çakrawartî,

rises; the çakrawartî, king of the king, immovably turns the
wheel of the empire. Invisible as that of the wind, his action
shows the destiny of the forces of nature. In a thousand forms
and in the closest connection with the idea of a Nordic-
Hyperborean land, the symbolism and analogy of the seat of the
center, the seat of permanence breaks through: the island, the
mountain high, the castle of the sun, the preserved land, the
wise island, respectively the island of splendor, the hero's
court. "Neither by land nor by sea is the sacred land
accessible," Hellenic tradition reports. "Only the flight of
the spirit leads there," murmurs the Far Eastern tradition.
Other texts speak of the mysterious magnetic mountain, into
which those who have attained spiritual enlightenment are
raptured. Further writings tell again of the sun country, from
which symbolic figures emerge, which become the royal dignity
in the midst of masterless races.

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have taken over. This is also the island of Avalion, that is,
the island of Apollo, the sun god called Aballun by the
Celts. Legendary divine races like the Tuatha dé Danann, who
came from Avallon, were also said to come from "heaven". The
Tuatha took with them from Avallon certain mystical objects:
a stone that signifies the legitimate kings, a lance, a
sword, a vessel that "gives inexhaustible food", that is, the
eternal nourishment, the "gift of life". These are the
objects of the later Grail legend.

From the heights of primeval times, this body of thought

descends to the Middle Ages, and in this period it assumes
peculiar manifestations. These are, among others, the ideas of
the kingdom of the priest-king John and the king Arthur.
"Priest-king John" is not a name, but a title. A dynasty of
"priest-kings John" is spoken of as that which, like the
Davidic dynasty, embodies the royal and at the same time the
spiritual dignity. The kingdom of John often gets the features
of the "original place" - the "earthly paradise". There grows
the tree: a tree that in the variants of the legend sometimes
comes to the fore as a tree of life, but sometimes also as a
tree of victory and world domination.
There you can also find the Stone of Light: a stone that
resurrects the imperial beast, the eagle.
John holds the people of Gog and Magog - the elemental powers,
the demon of the collective - under his spell. The legends
tell of symbolic journeys that the greatest rulers of world
history would have made to the land of John the priest-king or
to lands of equal significance to seek there a kind of
supernatural consecration for their office and power. John,
for his part, would have sent emperors, such as "Frederick",
symbolic gifts that had the meaning of a heavenly order

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included. One of the heroes who arrive in the kingdom of John

is Ogier the Dane. However, from the Ogiersage, the kingdom of
John is equated with Avallon, that is, with the Hyperborean
island, the Uranian sun land, the Aryan white island. It is to
Avallon that King Arthur retreats. A tragedy, which is
described by the texts in different ways, forces him to seek
refuge there.
Arthur's retreat has only the meaning of the becoming latent
of a principle. "Arthur" never died according to the legend.
He still lives in "Avallon". He will reveal himself again. In
the figure of the king Arthur only a new manifestation of the
"polar ruler", of the world king thought is to be seen. The
historical is carried along and shaped by the superhistorical.
Already the old ethymology traces the name "Arthur" back to
arthos, i.e. bear, which in turn points us back to the "center
idea" through the astronomical symbolism of the polar star.
The symbolism of the Round Table, of whose knighthood Arthur
is the highest head, is a solar and a "polar" one. One reports
that the Arthusburg is built like Mitgard, the light residence
of the Nordic Asen, - "in the center of the world". (in medio
mundi constructum). In some texts this castle is portrayed as
revolving: it revolves around itself, as in the "white
island", çveta-dîpa, of the Indo-Europeans of India in the
Hyperborean land, whose god is the sunlike Vishnu, the
swastika revolves, as the Celtic-Nordic "glass island" - an
image of Avallon - revolves; as the fateful wheel of the
eakravartl, the Aryan king of the world, revolves. The
supernatural traits of the Aryan world-king are embodied, as
it were, in Myrddhin, or Merlin, an advisor inseparable from
Arthur, who is not, in essence, another being distinct from
him, but something like a complementary part of him. The
knighthood of Arthur will seek the Grail. The knighthood of
Arthur, which has its members from

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of all countries, has the slogan: "He who is leader, let him
be a bridge for us". According to ancient ethymology,
"Pontifex" meant the bridge builder, the one who makes the
connection between the two shores, the two worlds.

In addition, there are dark historical memories and

geographical transmissions of temporal meanings. The island
country lying at the outermost border of the "world", which is
spoken of in many traditions, points in fact only to the
primeval center in the primeval distance of the time. The sun
country is for the Greeks Thüle. Thüle is equivalent to
Airyanem-Waêjô, the land of the extreme north of the Aryan
Persians. Airyanem-Waêjô is the "seed" of the Aryan-Iranian
primal race, in which the conception of the king of kings, the
bearer of the law of the light-god will reappear.
Airyanem-Waêjô knew the realm of the sunny Yima, the golden
age. But Hesiod remembers: "When that age (the golden one)
ended, those divine men continued to exist and became in
invisible form the guardians of men." This because the "sense
of history" is decay: in place of the golden age came the
silver age - that of the "mother", after that the bronze age -
that of the Titans, at last the iron "dark" age; kali- yuga,
time of the wolf, twilight of the gods. Why? Many myths seem a
connection between "fall" and hubris,
i.e. Promethean usurpation, titanic rebellion. Again Hesiod
remembers: Zeus, the Olympic principle, creates a generation
of heroes, who are more than Titans and who can gain again a
godlike life. Through them, the solar primordial spirituality,
the golden age, can be restored. A symbol: the Doric-Aryan
Heracles, ally of the Olympians, enemy of the Titans and
Giants.

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The doctrine of the supreme center and the world ages is

closely related to the doctrine of cyclic laws and
manifestations. Without this reference many myths and memories
would remain in the state of unstructured and incomprehensible
fragments. "This happened once - this will happen again",
teaches the tradition. And also, "Every time the spirit
perishes and nefariousness rises, I reveal myself: for the
protection of the righteous, for the destruction of the
wicked, for the firm restoration of the law, I assume a body
from age to age." In all traditions, in various forms, more or
less accomplished, there is always to be found the doctrine of
the cyclic appearance of a single principle, which continues
to exist in an unrevealed state in the intervening periods.
Belief in the Messiah, the Last Judgment, the Regnum, etc. -
all these are only fragmentary renderings, distorted by an
unbridled religious imagination, of this knowledge, a
knowledge which, however, also underlies those obscure ideas
which have as their object a ruler who has never died, who has
withdrawn into an inaccessible abode and who will one day
reveal himself again for the last battle, a "sleeping" emperor
who will awaken; a wounded prince who awaits Him who will heal
him and lead his empire to new prosperity. These familiar
motifs from the imperial saga take us very far back into the
tents. The Urarian myth of Kalki-avatara already embodies the
same meanings in meaningful connection with the other symbols
already indicated. Kalki-Avatara is "born" in Shambala - one
of the designations of the Ur-Nordic center. The teaching is
transmitted to him by Paraçu-râma, the "never died" bearer of
the tradition of the divine heroes, the destroyer of the
rebellious, desecrated warrior caste. Kalki-avatara fights
against the "dark age" and essentially with its demon leaders
Koka and Vlkoka, which even ethymologically correspond to Gog
and Magog, the

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subterranean forces ruled by the priest-king John and

unleashed in the Dark Ages, against which the Ghibelline,
awakening emperor will also have to fight.

x
X X

The Grail legend can be traced back to this world of

thoughts and can only be understood historically as well as
supra-historically on the basis of these tradition-bound
teachings and this supra-traditional symbolism. Whoever
believes to exhaust the Grail legend in terms of content by
defining it as a mere Christian legend, as a "pagan-Celtic
folklore" or as the poetic invention of a sublimated chivalry,
will only receive the external, the insignificant and
unessential from this literature. Equally misleading would be
any attempt to make the Grail saga dependent on a special
"folk spirit". We can, after all, declare: The Grail is a
Nordic mystery. But then one should understand by "Nordic"
something much deeper and more comprehensive than only German
or even Indo-European and refer to the Hyperborean tradition,
which is ultimately the same as the original tradition itself.
Indeed, all the main motifs of the cycle in question can be
traced back to this tradition.

Extremely significant in this respect is already the

indication of Perceval le Gallois that the writings about the
history of the Grail were found on the island of Avallon,
where "the tomb of Arthus lies". And not only that: other
texts call the land where Joseph of Arimathia would have
originally taken the Grail, or where certain mysterious
ancestors of Joseph lived, the "white island", "isle blanche"
and island of Avallon, "Insula Avallonis". They are again the
names of the Nordic primitive center. Was

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England is described as a kind of "Land of Verne Issums" of

the Grail and as a region in which the Grail adventures mainly
take place, so much already leads to the suspicion that it is
essentially a symbolic country. England was also called
"Albion" and "white island", Albania a part of it, Avallon the
locality Glastonbury. The old Celtic-British mythology seems
to have transferred to England or to a part of England certain
memories and meanings which refer essentially to the Nordic
primeval center, to Thule, the land of the sun. The true
"land" of the Grail is this. Thus it happens that the Grail
kingdom enters into the closest connection with the symbolic
kingdom of Arthur, the devastated kingdom, "la terre gaste"
and the kingdom whose ruler is wounded, lethargic or decayed.
A rocky island, a glass island, the turning island, the Isle
of the Tournance, a land surrounded by waters, an inaccessible
place, a mountain height, a sun castle, a wild mountain and a
mountain of salvation (Montsalvatsche and Mons Salvationis),
an invisible, inaccessible castle, reachable only by the
called ones, and even by them only at the risk of their lives,
etc.: These are the main stages of all adventures of the Grail
heroes; they are nothing else but as many manifestations of
the symbolic residence of the World King. The memory of the
primordial center returns: "Eden" is called by one text the
Grail land. The Lohengrin cycle and the Saxon Chronicle of
Halberstadt report: "Arthur sits with his knights in the
Grail, which was then the Earthly Paradise, - i.e. the Urland
-, and has now become a place of "sin"".

The Grail in chivalric literature is actually a

supernatural object, which has the following main
characteristics: it "nourishes" - (gift of life); it
illuminates (spiritual enlightenment); it makes

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invincible. Of its other aspects, two in particular stand out

here:

First, the Grail is a celestial stone, which not only

appoints the kings, like the stone taken by the Tuatha from
Avallon, but also designates the rulers who have to become
"priest-king John" (Titurel).

Secondly, the Grail is the stone that sprang from the

crown of Lucifer at the moment of his defeat (Wartburg War).
As such, the Grail symbolizes a power that Lucifer lost in the
fall, and it preserves the features of a mysterium tremendum
also in the other texts. Like a terrible power, the Grail
kills, crushes or blinds any knight who approaches it too
close without being called or worthy of it. This aspect of the
Grail is related to the so-called trial of the "perilous
seat". At Arthur's round table, someone is now missing. A
place is empty, which ultimately belongs to the highest head
of the order. Whoever occupies it without being the expected
hero will be slain by lightning or devoured by the earth. The
Grail can only be attained through struggle, "it must be won,"
says Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The mystery of the Grail is divided into two motifs: one

refers to a symbolic realm, appearing as the image of the
supreme center, which is to be restored. The Grail is no
longer present in it or has lost its virtue. The king of the
Grail is infirm, wounded, senile, or caught by an evil spell
that seems to keep him alive while he has been dead for
centuries (from the Turlin).

The other motive ordered in the presence of a hero who,

by being able to fight for the Grail, should feel obliged to
such restoration; otherwise

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he fails his task, and his heroic power is cursed (Wolfram).

He is supposed to be able to forge a broken sword together
again. He is supposed to be the "avenger. He is supposed to
"ask the question".

What kind of task is this? It seems to be the same that

Hesiod has assigned to the heroes: to that generation which,
born in the ages of decay, has to restore the primeval age. As
the Hesiodic hero is to overcome and conquer the Titanic, so
the Grail hero is to overcome the Luciferic danger. It is not
enough that the Grail knight proves himself in all kinds of
natural and supernatural adventures as a "heart of steel" and
the "best and bravest knight in the world": He should also be
"free from pride" and "gain wisdom" (Wolfram, Gautier). If
Lucifer has lost the Grail, some texts (Grand St. Graal,
Gibert de Mostreuil, Morte Darthur) attribute without further
ado to Lucifer the demonic power that works against the Grail
knights in various trials. And not only that, but in each case
the Grail King is rendered powerless by suffering from a
burning, poisoned wound contracted in the service of
Orgelluse, it being readily apparent that Orgelluse is nothing
other than a female personification of the principle of pride,
in French orgueil. However, in the castle of the same
Orgelluse, other Grail knights, such as Gawain, are put to the
ultimate test. But they do not succumb. They win. They marry
or "possess" Orgelluse. The purpose of these tests is to
realize a pure power, a spiritual manhood, to raise the heroic
quality to an Olympian, royal, solar level, to a level
detached from any power of chaos. "The earthly chivalry is to
become a heavenly one," it can be read in Queste du Graal.
Only under this condition is the way to the Grail Castle
opened up

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and can one persevere on the "perilous sit" without being

crushed, as the Titans were crushed by the thunderbolt of the
Olympian god.

However, the peculiar main motive of the whole Grail

cycle is, as already said, the following: To the hero, who has
gone so far in such completion of a non-earthly knighthood,
another decisive task imposes itself: Once he is allowed into
the Grail Castle, he is to sympathize with the tragedy of the
wounded, paralyzed or only apparently living Grail King and
take the initiative for the absolute act of restoration. This
is enigmatically expressed by the texts several times: for
example, the Grail hero is supposed to "ask the question".
Which question ?
Here the authors seem to want to remain silent. One has the
impression as if in this point something prevents the author
from speaking and that a banal explanation is given to cover
the true answer. However, if one follows the inner logic of
the entire narratives, then it is almost clear what it is
really about: The question to be asked is the question of
empire; it is not a question of knowing what certain objects
in the Grail Castle mean, but it is a question of feeling the
tragedy of decay and, having once reached that consummation
which the vision of the Grail signifies, of raising the
question of restoration. Only on this basis the whole
explains itself, and the miraculous virtue of this enigmatic
question becomes understandable: because the hero, who is not
indifferent, and asks the question, redeems the seich with
this question. Who was only apparently alive disappears; who
was wounded is lightened. In any case, the hero takes the
place of the previous one as a new, true Grail King. A new
cycle begins.

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According to some texts, the dead knight, who seems to

remind the hero of his revenge and task, appears in a bier
drawn by swans. The swan is the animal of Appollon in the
land of the Hyperboreans, in the Nordic primeval land. Drawn
by swans, the knights of the Grail travel from the highest
center where Arthur rules: from Avallon.

In other texts the Grail hero is called the "Knight of

the Two Swords". But in the theological-political literature
of that time, especially in the Ghibelline, the two swords
meant nothing else than the double power, the double dominion:
the temporal and the supernatural. A classical text speaks of
the Hyperborean land as that from which originated families
like that of the Heraclides, who bore at the same time the
royal and the priestly dignity.

x
x x

The inaccessible and inviolable Grail Kingdom is also a

reality in that form, according to which it is not bound to
any place, to any visible organization and to any earthly
kingdom. It is a homeland to which one belongs after a birth
other than physical, in the sense of a spiritual dignity.
This kingdom unites, in unbreakable chain men who can be
scattered in the whole world, in space, in time, in peoples,
to such an extent that they appear to be united, and the one
does not need to know about the other. In this sense, the
realm of the Grail, like that of Arthur and John, like Thule,
like Mitgaard and Avallon, is always there. It is immobile
because of its "polar" nature. Accordingly, it is not nearer
or farther to the current of history. It is rather the
currents of history, the people and their empires, which are
able to approach it more or less.

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Now, at a certain time, the Ghibelline Middle Ages seemed

to show such an approach to a great extent and to offer, so to
speak, the historical-spiritual material by means of which the
Grail Kingdom would not only become occult, but also visible
and, as in the original traditions, an inner, but at the same
time also outer reality. In this way it can be argued that the
Grail was the crowning glory of the medieval imperial myth and
the highest creed of Ghibellineism. Such a confession is
really to be sought in the legend rather than in the life and
the clear, political will of that time. Similarly, what moves
most deeply and dangerously in the individual expresses itself
less through the shaping of reflective consciousness than
through the symbolism of dream and subconscious primordiality.

The Middle Ages waited for the Grail hero, so that the
"dry" tree of the empire would blossom again, every
disruption, every usurpation, every contradiction would be
destroyed and a sunny order would actually prevail. The Grail
Empire, which was to be led to new splendor, is itself the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Grail hero, who
would have become the "ruler of all creatures" and the one to
whom the "highest power" would be handed over, would be the
historical emperor, "Fridericus", if he had been the executor
of the Grail mystery or the Hyperborean mystery.

History and superhistory seemed to meet in a moment:

There was a period of metaphysical tension, a culmination and
highest hope - afterwards again collapse and dispersion.

All of the Grail literature seems to be crammed into a

short period of time: No text seems to have been written before
the last quarter of the twelfth century and after the first
quarter of

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of the thirteenth century to have been written. At the end of

the first quarter of the thirteenth century one suddenly stops
- something like obeying a watchword - to speak of the Grail.
Only after many years and in already different moods one
writes again about the Grail. It looks as if at a certain
moment a subterranean current had appeared, but immediately
afterwards had withdrawn again into the invisible (Weston).
The time of this submergence of the Grail tradition
corresponds approximately to the eve of the tragedy of the
Templars. Perhaps there lies the starting point to the
collapse.

In Wolfram the Grail Knights are called "Templeise" resp.

Templars called, although with him no temple comes into
question. In certain texts, the knight-monks of the mysterious
"island" wear the same sign of the Templars: red cross on
white robe. In other texts, the Grail adventures take on a
twilight mood of the gods: The Grail hero probably
accomplishes "revenge" and restores the kingdom. However, a
heavenly voice announces that he should retreat with the Grail
to a mysterious island. The ship that comes to fetch him is
the Templar ship: it carries white sails with a red cross.

Secret societies seem to have preserved the old symbols

and traditions of the Grail cycle after the collapse of the
imperial culture: Ghibelline "faithful of love", later
minstrels, Hermetists. One reaches with it up to the
Rosicrucian movement.
In the Rosicrucians, the same myth reappears: the Castle of
the Sun, the Emperor as "ruler of the fourth realm" and
destroyer of all spiritual usurpation; an invisible
brotherhood of transcendent personalities united exclusively
by their purpose and essence; lastly, the strange mystery of
the resurrection of the King, a

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Mystery that turns into the statement that the king is

already alive and awake. Who attends this mystery wears the
Templar flag: a white panne with a red cross.
The grail animal, the dove, is also present.

However, a watchword seems to be given also here. At a

certain moment, people everywhere suddenly stop talking about
the Rosicrucians. According to the tradition, the last real
Rosicrucians left the Occident at the time when absolutism,
rationalism, individualism and enlightenment were already
paving the way for the French Revolution and retreated to
"India". Have retreated.

India is a symbol here. It means the site of the priest

king John, the Aryan king of the world. It is Avallon. It is
Thule. According to a text, dark times have come over
Salvatierra, where the Monsalvatritters are located.
The Grail is not allowed to stay there any longer. It is taken
to "India", to the kingdom of King John, which "lies near
Paradise". Once the Grail knights have landed there, the
Monsalvat and his castle suddenly and miraculously appear
there, because "among the sinful peoples nothing of it shall
remain". Parsifal himself takes the office of the "priest
John". Of Shambala, the mystic "city of the north", where the
"northern ways" or the "ways of the Aryan gods", deva-yana,
lead, it is said by the Tibetan ascetics: "It lies in my
spirit".

x
X X

In every end lies a beginning decided. Today, a world of

decay is dissolving. New forces are emerging from the depths.
Decisive battles are preparing. Primal symbols are conjured
up: under the sign of swastikas,

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Eagles, Romanesque-Hyperborean axes march new peoples. The

myth of the Empire has once again its resurrection. There is
already talk of a new state, which has to become an order
state: of a new order, which has to unite all occidental
forces struggling against the demony of the collective and the
dark tide of the Third International. With this, perhaps, new
times are gradually maturing: Times in which the myths of our
common Ghibelline greatness, of the invisible, inviolable
center, of the Aryan ruler who is to awaken, of the avenging
and restoring hero will no longer be considered fables of a
lost romantic past, but will reveal themselves as the truth
and reality of those who can rightly be regarded as the only
living ones.

It would be very welcome if the spiritual vanguard of the

German renewal movement, in particular, would give itself the
clearest account of this and, on this basis, awaken in itself
the ability to find in its present myths the path that can
really make possible the reconnection with the origins, with
the secret tradition of the Empire and the mystery of the
North.

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Third lecture :

" The weapons of the secret war " .

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There is a secret war: this is the war that is waged

underground by the forces of world overthrow using means that
almost always elude common research methods. The concept of
secret war belongs to a, so to speak, three-dimensional
conception of history; not the two dimensions of apparent
causes, events and leaders come into question, but mainly the
dimension of depth. In this subterranean dimension there are
forces and influences whose effect is determining, and which
often cannot even be traced back to the simply human - be it
individual or collective.

Above all, we want to clarify the meaning of the term

"subterranean" that we use. We do not think of a dark
irrational underground, which stands in the same relation to
the generally known part of history, as in detail the
unconscious stands to the waking consciousness. Of the
unconscious can be Hede only in view of those who, according
to the three-dimensional conception of events, appear to us
less as subjects than as objects of history, in that in their
thoughts and actions they hardly give an account of the real
influences they obey and of the real aims they realize. Thus
their center falls more into the preconscious and subconscious
than into the clear, reflective consciousness, and in this
respect it may well be said that in fact the most decisive
actions of the secret war are conducted in the subconscious.
From the point of view of the real perpetrators of history,
however, things are quite different; here we can neither speak
of the subconscious nor of the unconscious: Rather, we are
dealing with thoroughly intelligent forces which know exactly
what they want and which means are most suitable for the
realization of what they want. To assume that the basic ground
of the story of the

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 - 43 -

The idea that the third dimension of history is formed by the

"irrational", the "life", the "becoming" or any other of these
unclear, newly invented entities, is hur philosophy and a very
dangerous error: as will be expressed later, we even see in it
one of the suggestions that were spread in certain circles in
the service of certain aims of the secret front. So: the third
dimension of history must not disappear in the fog of abstract
philosophical concepts, but is to be thought as occupied and
inhabited by quite precise "intelligences". If certain secret
societies can be the immediate organ of these forces, one must
not, however, persist in this and assume that these latter
exhaust the essence and effect of the invisible enemy, for it
is a struggle which is ultimately metaphysical. According to
one of the various conceptions of history prevalent in the
Occident, history is not to be seen as a mechanism of natural,
political, economic or social causes, but as the development
of a plan - the "providential" plan - which is resisted by
opposing forces with their historical bearers. Such forces are
sometimes referred to morally as "forces of evil" or
religiously Christianly as antichristian forces or forces of
antichrist. Such a conception has something in itself under
the following three conditions: it is to be translated from
the theological to the practical level, it is to become the
general methodological principle for a deepened knowledge of
events, it is to be generalized and freed from the one-sided
Christian premises because it is valid also in relation to
non-Christian culture. If we are talking essentially about
human institutions, then it is better without further ado to
speak par excellence of forces of tradition and forces of
anti-tradition, of forces of spiritual hierarchy and cosmos
and of forces of revolutionary upheaval and chaos. Today, more
than ever, there is a need to deal with such

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These thoughts are not to be confused with philosophical

speculations, but are to be considered as indispensable
weapons for the right action. We would like to recall a very
significant passage of the "Protocols of Zion": "The way of
thinking of the goim is only animal, so they are incapable of
foreseeing the consequences that a certain cause can produce
when it is presented under a certain light. It is precisely
because of this difference in thinking between us (the sages
of Zion) and the goim that we easily come to the realization
of being the chosen ones of God and of our superhuman nature,
compared to the instinctive and animalistic way of thinking of
the goim.
These latter understand well the "facts", but they do not
foresee them and are incapable of inventing anything except
material things". This document, which makes Judaism the main
perpetrator of the overthrow of the world, refers to the non-
Jews (goim): if we let them apply in general to those whom we
have called "objects" of history, then this judgment on the
goi still seems terribly accurate today. The way of thinking
of most of today's "people of action" seems - compared with
that of their masked opponents - indeed childlike. They
concentrate all their forces on the immediately tangible, and
they are incapable of grasping causal relations beyond an
extremely limited and almost always crassly materialistic
horizon.

The secret front, on the other hand, works with what we

like to call with a simile taken from the positive sciences,
the imponderable or the imponderable quantities. It very often
causes changes that are almost imperceptible, from which
slowly but fatefully significant effects emanate. It works
almost hie by a direct resistance, but by a purposeful
steering, which leads the forces to the desired goal. What
Wundt

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The "heterogeneity of goals", which the author once called

"heterogeneity of goals", plays the main role: certain people
or circles, who believe that they are only enforcing something
they wanted, serve as tools to realize or make possible
something completely different, thus betraying a superior
influence and "meaning". Therefore, the "differential" between
what is wanted and what has happened, between the principles
and programs and their true consequences in history, offers
the most precious material for research into the real forces
at work in history.

Having said this, let us consider some of the means most

frequently employed in our times by the masked forces of world
overthrow to camouflage their actions, to prevent those of
their opponents in advance, and to exert their influence
constantly.

1.) The positivist suggestion. First of all, one should get

acquainted with the idea that the so-called "positive" method
of looking at history and events is rather a suggestion
systematically spread in the modern culture by the anti-
traditional forces to cover their action, than a spontaneous
phenomenon or the prejudice peculiar to a very limited way of
thinking. Those who believe that history is exclusively man-
made and determined only by economic, political and social
factors do not see far and confuse causes with effects.
Exactly this wishes the forces, which want to work
underground. A culture dominated by the "positive" prejudice
offers the most excellent condition for an action from the
third dimension. To a large extent, unfortunately, this is the
case with modern culture. It is a culture directly
incapacitated, blind and defenseless by the positivist,
rationalist and scientific prejudice.

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Today, although we speak of renewal, we are far from tearing

off the mask of so many ideas that still form the basis of the
modern way of thinking and teaching: Ideas that are not so
much errors or limitations as suggestions, purposely spread by
the conspirators greedy for destruction and domination.

We have already spoken of certain conceptions of history

which are no longer "positivistic" and have as their basis
"becoming", "life" or "spirit". We can see in it an example of
the application of a second instrument of the secret war,
namely:

2.) The tactics of substitution. It is used every time when

the danger of "awakening" makes itself felt and the "objects
of history" try to get rid of the ideas through which the
occult play of the forces of world overthrow easily prevails.
In the case just indicated, in fact, these unclear concepts of
"becoming," "life," "unconscious," etc., are only a bait for
those who were no longer satisfied with the positivist
schemes, so that their eye does not turn where it should look.
Through the fog of such concepts the field of vision is veiled
as well as through the dark night of positivistic agnosticism.
One plays with phielosophy and worldview, while the conspiracy
progresses.

The tactic of replacement also develops in a significant

and effective way as a

3.) Tactics of the falsified likenesses. It is the following:

The effects of the work of destruction can carry over into the
material and take such a visible and extreme form that they
lastly call for a reaction.

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This reaction then searches in an unclear manner for symbols

and myths suitable for reconstruction, and may even find such.
They are almost always symbols and reference points from the
tradition-bound past, which are awakened to new life by the
deeper forces of a race threatened ml final destruction. In
such cases, the secret struggle is not enforced by any direct
action, i.e. these symbols are apparently not resisted, but
only forgeries and imitations of them are sought to be
disseminated and used. Thus, the reaction is either dampened
or deflected or even reversed in the opposite direction. In
this direction then the same influences set in, which worked
in the fighting evil and decay, and against which one tried to
defend oneself. This tactic can take place in various fields,
in the spiritual as well as in the political, and seems to be
particularly popular today. It is worthwhile to list examples
of it.

The most typical case is formed by "traditionalism".

Tradition is bondage to the metaphysical-forming. Tradition is
the secret of all that has form in a higher sense,
consequently of what race and culture mean in a higher sense.
Continuity, i.e. uninterruptedness, overcoming the temporal
within the temporal, is tradition, and tradition owes this
quality to the existence of both a knowledge of symbols and
principles and meanings which are supra-individual and supra-
historical, and a ruling elite which legitimizes itself
precisely through this supra-historical reality. Now it often
happens in the modern world that the vague longing for the
return to tradition is diverted into the form of
"traditionalism", i.e. into the form of vague assumptions of
dilettante or militant character, which confuse tradition with
customs and routine,

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into a short-winded particularism and lazily persist in

certain traditional forms without knowing anything of their
spirit. As such, the "traditionalist" entities provide the
best pretext for playing their opponents, whose light attack
against traditionalism is only the cover of their struggle
against tradition, and which has as its real aim the promotion
of revolutionary overthrow. Thus, the reaction is prevented
and the maneuver brilliantly leads to the desired result. One
should be very careful not to make the same thing happen with
the main ideas of today's renewal movements, i.e. race,
empire, Romanism, Aryanism etc. It can be argued that among
these ideas there is none which is not exposed to the danger
of similar transmutations, because the opponent knows only too
well what healing effect could come out of these ideas if they
were to break through in the most genuine and highest form.

In a lecture held in December, also within the framework

of the D I G, we have already dealt with this question, as far
as it relates to the Nordic and the Nordic tradition. And our
two previous lectures could perhaps already mean a similar
contribution with regard to the tradition-bound conception of
the act and the realm?

4.) Tactics of upheaval. - The secret forces of the world

overthrow knew very well that the precondition of the order to
be destroyed is the supernatural element, the spirit,
conceived not as a philosophical abstraction but as a higher
reality, final goal of the process of the transcendent
perfection of the personality and legitimation of every true
rulership. Having limited the influence that the last
occidental creed could still exert in this respect (we

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cannot here examine the means employed for this purpose), the
forces of subversion had to strive that every new aspiration
for the supernatural awakening outside the ruling religion
would be diverted and paralyzed. What we may call, with
reference to the various theosophistic, spiritualistic,
orientalizing and "occultistic" sects of modern times, neo-
spiritualism, is to be regarded mainly as the result of such a
maneuver. In all this, again, it is almost exclusively a
question of distorted images, imitations and distortions of a
spiritual knowledge, for which circles of half-educated people
and enthusiasts are to blame, who in this respect often seem
to be subject to a truly demonic influence.

In this way, a double result has been obtained. It has

been easy, first of all, to refer the discredit in which these
imitations had to fall to the teachings themselves, thus
rendering the latter incapable of having a dangerous effect.
Lately, this maneuver seems to be carried out also by
political means: there are, for example, circles that see
everywhere only "Freemasonry" and secret societies, where it
is a question of esoteric symbols, even if the reference goes
to ancient traditions that have nothing to do with the
heresies of Freemasonry and have spiritual-aristocratic
features. In addition, there is the positivist prejudice that
sees in all this only superstition and fantasy.

In the second place, by means of misunderstood

"exercises", one has come to direct most of those who
practically aspired to the supernatural, not to the
supernatural, but to the subnatural,
i.e. to the "unconscious", to medianity and in general to a
world that is far from being the increase of the

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normal personality, can only bring about its collapse and

decomposition, making man directly the unsuspecting tool of
the darkest influences. With the "neo-spiritualism" the world
conspiracy has thus eliminated the danger which the true
supernatural in the modern anti-material culture could have
meant for the secret front, and it now looks with satisfaction
at those who proclaim the secret doctrine of the superman in
theosophistic circles of old women, inferiors and sub-humans,
or at the others who dance to the beat of the rationalist-
political idols,

5.) Tactic of the setback. - It is realized when one of the

forces, which one wants to eliminate from the world because of
its still tradition-bound character, is induced to take the
initiative for an action, which in a first moment is directed
against a similar, i.e. traditional force; when this is
destroyed, it turns against the former and carries it away.
The secret forces of world overthrow often arrive at the goal
through suitable infiltrations, that the representatives of a
tradition believe to defend it best by attacking and
discrediting other traditions. Whoever does not give an
account of it and attacks the tradition in the form of another
culturally related people out of material concerns, must be
afraid to see sooner or later once the tradition attacked also
with itself by a movement, so to speak, of the backlash. The
forces of world overthrow count very much on this tactic: they
therefore strive by all means to keep every higher idea under
the tyranny of particularistic interests, of proselytizing, of
pride and greed: they know quite well that this is the best
method of destroying all unity and true solidarity and of
fostering a state of disunion in which their game becomes very
easy.

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The case is similar with any Machiavellian use of

revolutionary forces. Some short-sighted statesmen have at
times thought that it might strengthen their nation to promote
or support revolution in opposing nations.
Without suspecting it, they have come to the opposite result.
While they thought they were using the revolution as a means,
the revolution has made them their tool: having found the
paths paved in other peoples thanks to those politicians, the
revolution has almost always reached and demolished the first
ones as well. It can be said that the whole of modern history
has been the scene of an overthrow that has been tragically
realized precisely in this way. In this connection it can
never be sufficiently emphasized that only the unconditional,
ascetic, unshakable fidelity to an idea can protect against
the forces of occult war; if the capacity of this spiritual
fidelity and the solidarity of a kind of holy war is lost, if
one obeys the random motives of a so-called realpolitik, then
the front of resistance is broken, and with it the possibility
of any true independence and freedom is lost.

Let us mention one of the last manifestations of such

tactics: the "principle of nationalities" and "anti-
imperialism" are myths invented by the Freemason and Jewish
wire-pullers of the Allies for the mobilization of every force
against the Central European empires and for the destruction
of the same; but they have now become ideologies which in the
future will be able best to promote, for example, a general
uprising of all colored peoples against the great European
powers and their claim to supremacy. No wonder that on this
basis such an ideology fell into the hands of the Comintern

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and became an important tool of Bolshevik propaganda outside

Europe.

6.) Tactics of scapegoating. - When the secret forces of

Walt's overthrow feel the danger of being exposed in some
aspect, they strive to direct and concentrate all the
attention of their opponents on certain elements that can be
considered only partially or only in a subordinate way
responsible for their misdeeds. The whole reaction is then
discharged on these elements, which have become real
scapegoats. The occult front is then free to continue its
game, since its opponents believe that they have now
discovered the enemy and have nothing further to look for. As
champions of anti-Semitism in Italy, we certainly cannot
arouse suspicion: that is why we have sometimes admonished
certain radical anti-Semites to be careful lest, seeing
everywhere only the Jew, they occasionally fall into such a
trap. The same admonition could be addressed to those who see
only Freemasonry everywhere, and so on, since such tactics are
effective in many other fields as well. With this, of course,
we do not want to misjudge in the least the extent of the
guilt of, for example, Jews and Freemasons, but rather to
raise the question whether even deeper and more mysterious
forces have determined the functional role of Judaism and
Freemasonry in modern times, and we are convinced that it
would be too good to be true if, with the elimination of
Judaism and Freemasonry, a golden age could be ushered in
without further ado, as some sincerely believe. One should
beware of any one-sidedness and never lose sight of the
overall picture of the true secret front.

Now for the:

7.) Tactics of dilutions. - It is a special aspect of the

"tactics of replacement". To understand what it is about,

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The following should be said in advance: The process that has

led up to today's general crisis has distant origins and
various phases. In each of these phases the crisis was
already present, although in a form not yet acute, potential
rather than actual. The doctrine of "progress" can be
considered as one of those suggestions that the secret forces
of world overthrow spread in order to make the eye turn away
from the origins and to make the process of decline go on and
on under the sign of illusory values, above all the dazzle of
the "achievements" of the technical-mechanical civilization.
The tragic experiences of the last years, however, have
managed to partially evoke this hypnosis, with which one has
begun to account for the fact that the speed of the alleged
"progress" meant only that of a race to the abyss. To stop and
to return to the origins as the only way to a new normal
culture became then slogans. On it the secret front mobilized
new means for the prevention of any radicalism.
First of all, it has coined and spread the slogan of
"untimeliness"; then it has succeeded in directing the forces
striving towards the origins again to conditions in which the
crisis and the evil appeared in milder and consequently less
sensible forms. This trap also succeeded. The leaders of the
world upheaval know, of course, that from this moment on there
is no longer any great danger: the reaction will soon follow
the same path and find itself again at the starting point, but
now without the possibility of still offering resistance to
the final collapse.

One could cite numerous historical examples of this

tactic as well. The leaders of today's counter-revolutionary
movements should be very attentive to this. For example,
certain features of today's

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Nationalism should be carefully examined from this point of

view. Everyone knows about the subversive and anti-
hierarchical role played by the collectivist-demagogic concept
of "nations" in relation to the preceding cultural forms. Now,
the reference in today's struggle against the various
internationals and Bolshevism goes back predominantly to the
idea of nations. It is therefore necessary to shape the
concept of nation in such a way that it no longer means a
stage of that path which has just led to the corruption to be
fought today. We have already had occasion in our writings to
consider this problem in greater detail and to distinguish
systematically between two opposing concepts of nation.

Here we must limit ourselves to two words. According to

the first conception, nation means only the mass - we have
intentionally not said people, but, in French, "nation" - it
is only a pretext to abolish every difference and rank in a
humiliating leveling. As such, in occidental history, the
nation appears in the downfall of the old hierarchical states
and as a prelude to that further leveling which will no longer
have as its general denominator the nation but the
international. - According to the other view, on the other
hand, the nation as a particular community of the people has
the significance of a first reaction against internationalist
egalitarianism: it already embodies a principle of difference
which is to be developed in a further intra-ethnic meaningful
division and ranking. Then there is no longer talk of nation,
but rather of empire in the tradition-bound sense.

8.) Tactics represent confusion of the principle with its

representatives. - In many ways, the decline of tradition-
bound institutions has mirrored the decline of their
leaders.

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and representative as a prerequisite. The real dissolution

and destruction, however, is made possible by the tactic of
confusing the principle with the person, and this is another
weapon of the secret war. If the representative of a certain
principle appears unworthy, one proceeds in the process
against this representative at the same time or even
essentially against the principle itself; in any case, one
also drags the principle into this process. Instead of
declaring that the representative is not worthy of the
principle and replacing him with someone else, one claims
that the principle is wrong, corrupt and in decay and must be
replaced by a new principle.

Everyone knows that in only too many cases the attack

against one or another degenerate aristocrat has turned into
an attack against the aristocratic principle itself and into a
weapon of demagogy. History is rich in examples of this
tactic, to which world subversion owes much. The hierarchical
order of ancient society culminated in a spiritual rulership,
to which the warrior aristocracy was subordinated, then the
bourgeoisie, and finally the working class. The collapse of
this order was in many respects brought about by the tactics
just indicated. The warrior nobility did not rise up against
the degenerate representatives of pure spiritual authority in
order to replace them by other more worthy representatives of
the same principle, but in order to emancipate themselves
under this pretext and to lay claim to the highest authority.
In a subsequent phase resp.
In the second culture, the third estate rose against the
degenerated warrior aristocracy, not so that true aristocrats
and warriors would take its place, but in order to seize
power. In a third phase, the process against a certain
destructive and negative side of capitalism and bourgeoisie
(i.e. against the third estate) has no corresponding

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It has not been the goal of reform, but the pretext for the
revolt of the masses and the usurpation of the gradually
deposed power by the proletariat: Class struggle, Third
International, birth of Bolshevism.

If we have had to confine ourselves to a few examples

and to deal mainly with the exposition of the principles, we
hope that this circumstance will not be an obstacle to the
discovery of the manifold applications of these principles
and of the valuable results to which they may lead when
applied systematically in any field. Indeed, it can be
asserted that there is hardly any field in which the secret
struggle has not taken place in some way.

Let us reiterate that these are not "philosophical"

attitudes, but very serious matters. In fact, we are convinced
that no leader or fighter of the front of counter-subversion
and tradition can be considered mature and equal to his true
tasks until he has developed within himself the ability to see
clearly into this subterranean world of causes and to fight
the enemy with the same invisible weapons.

I remind you again of the myth of the Wise Men of Zion:

compared to them, the people who understand only the "facts"
are like dull-witted animals. Especially in times which, like
today's, are prelude to the final decision of a whole cultural
world, we must feel the demand within us to awaken in this
elite or order, which has been spoken of so often in our
lectures, the ability to supplement the material struggle with
an invisible, subtle struggle, with a secret, inexorable
knowledge, which now, however, is not in the service of

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The first step is the development of a new, more powerful, and

more open, world.

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Anno XXVI - Vel. LII Roma, 15 Agosto 1938 (XVI Fascicolo CCCV

L A V I T A I T A L I A N A

Rassegna Politica

Direttore: Gievane1 Presios1

Le SS., guardia e "ordine" della rivoluzione crociuncinata

The SS, guardians and "orders" of the swastika revolution.

One of the most interesting, significant and perhaps

least known creations of the N.S. Revolution is the so-called
Korops of the SS. SS is the abbreviation of Schutzstaffel, it
is the "Black Corps" for the protection of the Third Reich. If
the army - the Reichswehr - is the organ of external defense
of the state, the SS is the organ of internal defense. In this
peculiar organization individual traits of ancient form of
order are found in a synthesis together with a political, a
biological and heroic elite, a "bodyguard" of the leader, a
"secret state police" in the higher sense and finally a group
destined to put into practice and defend the basic ideas of
the N.S. world view in a straight way. They are two hundred
thousand men, united by an inviolable oath of loyalty and
honor, and who, according to the values of their own leader,
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, feel themselves to be a
fighting order of National Socialism. Their aspirations turn
to the original: they want to form a unity in which the
resumed connection with the primeval forces of the primordial
race and with the myths of the great Nordic primordial
beginnings is transformed into the principle of a new
indomitable

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life is transformed, and here the new meaning of the blood is

to enter into a mysterious connection with the ancestor and
the deceased and to make the individual overcome his
individualistic feeling in order to insert him into the
continuity of the tribe and into a stream of life that opens
up to new future paths. The sacred signs of Germanic pre-
Christian antiquity are evoked again: the "runes" are often
used to designate particular divisions of the "Black Corps."
The custom introduced in Germany to designate the most diverse
formations with their initials (K.d.F., H.J., B.d.H., S.A.
etc.= has led to a particularly meaningful application in the
abbreviation of the Schutzstaffel SS: due to the similarity of
the two letters with the sign of the so-called "Runes of
Victory" - Siegrunen - one has easily come to replace the
former by the latter. So now it is the "Siegrunen" of the
Nordic antiquity, the zig-zag signs, which are used at every
opportunity, on the SS uniforms, in letters of summons etc..
And with it one of the cases has materialized, in which the
modern man steps to conjure up elementary things, about the
scope of which he only darkly accounts, and which are no
longer "views" and "theories" and "sorts", but powers, forces
and certain primordial beginnings. These zigzags of the
siegrunes, now worn on all the uniforms of the SS, are the
same ones represented in the ancient Egyptian symbol by the
image of the scepter, which have the meaning of the terrible
solar power that sanctifies, deifies and makes invincible the
kings. They also appear as the destructive force in the symbol
of celestial power, which was especially applied by the
Olympian deities of the Aryan race in their continuing
struggle against dark titanic and telluric forces. This is
also the sense that recurs today in the first still unclear
views; thus sees

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e.g. Himmler in fight against Bolshevism only an episode of

the continued and almost metaphysical struggle, in which the
forces of the Aryan humanity clash with those of the
subhumanity, and the SS, as the bearer of the "Siegrunen", now
also assumes the meaning of the anti-Bolshevik fighting
organization, and is - according to the words of SS-
Gruppenführer R. Heydrich, one of the other leaders of the
"Black Corps" - is aware of the tasks corresponding to the
struggle, which are directed not only against the visible, but
also against the hidden enemy.

If we briefly touch on the development of the SS, we can

say that its first beginnings were in the so-called
Stabswache, created by Nationalism in March 1933, which was
then followed by Hitler's "Stosstrupp", consisting of selected
and militarily trained elements who placed themselves only at
the unconditional, personal disposal of the Führer. After the
semi-military party organizations were banned and the corps
could no longer appear externally, the real and today existing
SS was created in the summer of 1923 by Julius Schreck,
Hitler's confidant; at the same time the present black uniform
with the silver skull on the cap was introduced. When Heinrich
Himmler on
When the SS took command of this corps on January 6, 1929, it
numbered 270 men; but already from that time on it developed
an effective clout, not only outwardly but also inwardly
against disaffected or doubtful elements of the party. At the
time of the seizure of power, the "Black Corps" already
numbered one hundred thousand men; its power, authority and
prerogatives increased more and more and received their final
sanction in 1934. The SS was the body that Hitler essentially
used in the measures taken on June 30, 1934 and in the
liquidation of the dissolution tendencies.

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which emanated from Ernst Röhm and von Schleicher. On the

basis of the loyalty and the merits of the SS, which had
proved on this occasion that it was subordinated to the S.A.
(Sturm-Abteilungen in brauner Uniform)in the brown uniform,
(Röhm was one of its main leaders), it was designated only as
an independent organization, and it was also transferred to
the full extent of the service of the "Secret State Police" or
GSP. Its leader Himmler has the official title of
"Reichsführer SS und Chefs der Deutschen Polizei". Thus, the
SS has become the most powerful organization of the party, in
direct consultation with Hitler. It is, it may be said, the
backbone of the movement, the organ which supervises it in all
its parts and stands up for its security. As far as Germany in
general is concerned, its second great foundation consists in
the army, in the Reichswehr, which, as is well known, does not
exhaust itself in the simple military element, but which also
has its own tradition, its own ideal, direct relation to the
nobility, especially the Prussian. It is not too bold an
assertion to say that the way in which relations between the
SS and the Reichswehr continue to develop will have a decisive
value for Germany's future. As for the other N.S.
organizations, such as "Labor Front" or S.A., however
important their tasks may be in political view and in the
dynamics of the political decisive forces for the new Germany,
they will always be in second, subordinate line. 1(1)

(1) We note that with the so-called "Ordensburgen", which have recently been

expanded, also within the framework of the "Labor Front" the attempt has
broken through to create an "elite" and, so to speak, a "school" for those
who will later have to fulfill political and general leadership tasks.
However, this does not yet give rise to anything resembling an organic
corps like the SS. - About the "Ordensburgen" reports an Aufs. in the July
issue d. Rassegna Italiens ( XVI. )

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Heinrich Himmler is credited with the intellectual

shaping of the SS, the specification of its tasks, the
establishment of the principles and regulations governing it.
The basic idea here is the creation of a new "elite", a new
nobility. When asked who in the old states was ready to
sacrifice everything to defend, support and protect his
prince, Himmler easily came to the conclusion that such a task
always belonged to the nobility, an elite that was recognized
by the prince and his tradition precisely as "noble". This
nobility, as the guarantor of the principle of suzerainty,
sank in the critical period of the post-war by the dangers of
capitalism and by siding with the liberalism of the XIX
century, showing itself incapable of remaining equal to its
tasks.

The healthiest elements remained in the army, but as such

they were excluded from the political struggle altogether,
because the army is given tasks of external defense, which, if
not insignificant, are independent in relation to the
political form of its nation. It was therefore necessary to
pass to the idea of an elite which would be closely connected
with the specific-political idea of the new state, that is, an
elite which would have value at the same time politically and
warlike, and which would be considered as the new guarantor of
the meaning and permanence of the political national and
revolutionary fortified order. This is the ideal development
of the SS as the "revolutionary elite of the Third Reich".

Their formation and organization have been led by

considerations of a biological-racial, ethical and
spiritual nature.

As far as the first point is concerned, Himmler starts

from the premise that his people are to culture in the higher
sense and to invincible resistance against their own enemies.

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The people are able to live in the North insofar as they have
a sufficient amount of Nordic blood flowing in their veins.
If such blood, starting from the prince down to the peasant,
seeps away, the people will fall into decay. Thus, for the
construction of the new state and its elite, the selection
and the nature of the Nordic elements will play an essential
role. In the storm troops of the SS, the selection in
question is enjoyed according to two reasons.

The first degree is mainly biological. All those persons

are admitted to the SS who are certainly of Aryan origin and
who approach the pure Nordic type in figure, proportions and
facial features. It is assumed, of course, that through the
mixtures possible in all peoples, traits and modes of feeling
of another race may appear in a physically Nordic type, but it
has also been observed that Nordic characteristics are more
likely to be found in a body of Nordic type than elsewhere. In
a further selection, cross-checks are to be made in this
respect. Here we want to emphasize that the Nordic racial in
the SS is not limited to the individual, but extends in
consideration to his family and origin. An SS man is not
allowed to marry whom he wants. According to a law enacted by
Himmler in 1931, a body that is considered for this purpose
must determine that the woman he chooses offers sufficient
guarantees of the likelihood of an origin corresponding to his
type and race. On this basis, the SS considers itself a "clan
order," and it is on this anti-individualist basis, tied to
blood, that it seeks to develop. Already in the ability to
submit to this law when marrying, one shows a first proof of
higher order, and thus one confirms one's willingness to
abandon the purely personal moment of feeling and of

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passion to the requirements of a supra-individualistic form of

order.

The second degree of selection has as its prerequisite

the principle of adaptability according to the words of
Hitler: "If I demand a heroic deed, the heroic gest will
answer to it. If, on the other hand, I promise many
advantages, the commercial spirit will answer this call". If
moral qualities are demanded, which one attributes mainly to
the Nordic race, one hopes already for an inner discipline as
the spontaneous selection of the second degree. As materials
are controlled according to the measure of the loading test,
it is put the one who wants to belong to the SS in special
situations in which his racial qualities are to prove.

If we consider the ethical essence of the SS only in this

way, we arrive, according to Himmler, at the following main
characteristics. The first and most fundamental of all is
loyalty. "Everything," says Himmler, "can be forgiven, except
treason." Hitler himself occasionally gave the events of June
30, 1934, to the SS as a slogan: "SS man, your honor is
loyalty," in apparent relation at the norm of old German law:
"All honor comes from loyalty." By this is meant every kind of
loyalty: loyalty, and above all respect for the Führer and the
race, loyalty to comrades and to the rules of decency,
honorableness and chivalry. And Himmler adds: "One sins
against loyalty and honor not only when one violates one's own
honor or that of another, but also when one mocks things that
are sacred to others, or when one does not manfully stand up
for the absent, the weak and the unprotected.
In a law passed on November 9, 1935, Himmler for the SS

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asserted not only the right, but the duty to duel, if required
by the circumstances.

After loyalty and honor comes obedience, which must be

unconditional and unlimited. It is said that after the
Prussian officer has taken his oath of allegiance, he no
longer has what is his. This tradition has been taken up by
the SS. In the name of the Fuehrer and the N.S. Weltanschauung
one must be ready for everything, also for sacrificing one's
own pride, the external and everything that can be dear and
valuable to us personally. One must be able to refrain from an
action, even if everything in us rebels against it and urges
us to intervene, just as one must be able to act on a single
sign, even if one feels an aversion to it, which seems to us
incomprehensible. Himmler considers this quality of
unconditional obedience as fundamental not only for ourselves,
but also to balance the accentuated sense of ego and the
emerging desire for freedom of the Nordic German man,
qualities that have often been the cause of much unhappiness
for him.

Other qualities required of the SS man are love of

truth, the ability to adhere unbendingly to what has been
decided with the greatest deliberation, absolute rectitude,
and as a foundation, of course, combative spirit(1). In his
speech held in Magdeburg on June 12, 1937, on the occasion of
the meeting of the German nobility, Himmler said that these
virtues correspond to as many tests to which the SS subjected

(1) Characteristic sayings of Himmler: "What is possible in Japan that a

gold coin can lie on the ground without being picked up, must also be valid
with us". Or also: "One can forbid an SS man alcohol. If he promises this
and then does not keep it, there is nothing left for him but the pistol".
If he refuses to promise, he is expelled.

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and which complete the selection process. After one and a half
years of probation, a member of the SS formation becomes the
one who has taken his SS oath to the Führer and has completed
his military and labor service without any problems; he then
receives the honorary dagger of the SS. It is interesting to
note that by a law of November 9, 1936, it was decreed that
every SS group leader must vouch under oath: 1.) that no
applicant will be accepted if he cannot meet the appropriate
requirements, even if it is a son or a relative, 2.) that in
each year one quarter of the new elements will not come from
families or circles of the SS. This is to avoid that the SS is
formed into a kind of hereditary caste, in which other
standards than those of the actual qualification prevail;
moreover, one tries to attract the best elements in the right
proportion to the SS, wherever they may come from, also in
order to avoid that they form other groups that detach
themselves from the central elite, as it is said to have
happened, according to Himmler, e.g. in ancient Rome, where
the best blood at the given moment was outside the Senate.

From what has been said about the characteristic

qualities of the SS-man, it is clear that there is a tendency
to go beyond the old plan, proper to a simply political corps,
and to strive for that which is proper to an "order", in the
ancient sense. It is quite clearly recognized that without the
presupposition of a religiosity and a purely spiritual point
of view, the invoked values of loyalty, honor, truth, etc.,
would become empty formulas and a unity belonging to a sworn
order would be impossible. Therein lies the third point of
view of the SS, the purely spiritual one.

In a booklet entitled: "Fifty questions and answers for

the SS man", after the formulas of the solemn

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Oath of allegiance and obedience has been considered, asked,

"Do you, then, believe in a God?"-The answer to this is, "Yes,
I believe in a higher God, and consider him presumptuous,
stupid, and not fitting to us who does not believe." But here
this generic confession of loyalty, which becomes uncertain
enough by respecting any religious conviction that does not
mix with politics, is less interesting than the tendency to
resurrect a precise form of spirituality tied to the Nordic
tradition, but in the sense of Indo-European, in order to give
the SS also the character of a "Stosstruppe der
Weltanschauung" - weltanschaulicher Stosstrupp (Heydrich). -
We have pointed out the principle that the "return to the
origins" has a significant part in the behavior of the SS.
This tendency becomes tangible in the so-called "Ahnenerbe", a
word that has more or less the meaning of "inheritance of the
ancestors" and represents a particular cultural form of the
SS(1). The noblest work of this organization is that of re-
establishing contact between the old traditions and the more
conscious elite of the new Germany; it proceeds from the
premise that what emerges unconsciously as instinct from the
depths of the soul is exposed to continuing dangers and cannot
attain true realization unless it is supported by conscious
spiritual power and clear vision (Walther Wüst). It is
therefore advisable to investigate "the spirit and deeds of
Nordic Indo-Germanism" and to give "a living form to the
results of this investigation" and to transmit them to the
German people.

(1) The chairman of the "Ahnenerbe" is SS-Sturmführer Prof. Walther Wüst. The

organization issues various publications, and its official organ is the

monthly magazine "Germania", headed by Dr. J.O.Plassmann.

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And in this respect also, at least programmatically, the

methods of "rigid science" and rationalism will be strongly
opposed, any, "naturalistic" interpretation of ancient
religions will regain, in myth and symbol "objectivity" and
"rigid science" will be able to be a cover for the hidden work
of paralyzing and destructive forces (Heydrich). The matter is
typical and most interesting. The leaders of the SS, who have
to fulfill the most difficult and important political
functions, to control the Geheime Deutsche Staatspolizei, and
who constitute the bodyguard of the Führer and of National
Socialism, are at the same time people who are vividly
interested in the world of symbols and primordial myths, and
they are people with whom one can discuss supersensible
problems and spiritual traditions of origins. This is a fact
that we have noticed personally and repeatedly, and it has not
made us happy when we think of the level of many Italian
circles, of that certain culture in our country on which the
revolution of the Blackshirts has not had any influence, that
culture which, even when it comes to our most sacred things,
like the ancient Roman world, sticks to its always the same,
positivistically ignorant knowledge, and which, wrapped in
academic pretentiousness, belongs to the "enlightened" and
rationalistic world of the past century.

However, if we want to avoid any partiality, we must

nevertheless state that, as far as this spiritual attitude of
the SS comes into consideration, we cannot always say the same
thing about the principles that would be truly worthy of this
name, although lively interest and a reasonable sensitivity are
undeniable. For the reconstruction of the old traditional
world, wrong mental points have been assumed all too often,
through which the

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meaning of many thoughts was distorted and their scope

limited, especially by a certain elite to draw political
benefit considerations from them, as well as by the
particularism of a certain racial-national attitude.

These observations are equally valid with regard to the

various attempts of the new Germany to complete the N.S.
worldview with its traditional and symbolic content of a
higher order. But they must not lead to a hasty participation,
because it is not easy to orient oneself in such a course of
events, because one cannot destroy overnight the pernicious
effects of an erroneous way of thinking and a false culture,
which the occidental man has adopted for centuries. However,
if the SS, which is not a group of intellectuals but a corps
already firmly organized in the sense of an order supervising
one of the most powerful renewing European movements, will
succeed in creating from its own ranks an elite capable indeed
of realizing, with full awareness of the principles, the
aspiration of returning to the origin, the significance of
such a realization would be something very special. At the
first stage of such a completion, we would indeed encounter
forms of a spirituality and a civilization like that of the
Ghibelline Middle Ages with its orders of chivalry,
representing a synthesis between the Nordic-Germanic and the
Roman elements.

The second stage would lead us to the general original

Indo-European spirituality and its solar traditions, which is
equal to the origin of all that can hold for us the value of
a civilization in the higher sense, in our age, which can be
for us the subject of history. From this it is easy

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emphasizes that an elite which would actually be capable of a

realization of the kind would have a value not only for its
own nation, but also for all other Aryan peoples who are
fighting against the same enemy and account for the fact that
this struggle cannot be decided until it is completed by an
idea, by symbols and professions of order, which are basically
metaphysical in themselves. While the Jewish-Communist press
endeavors to portray the SS as a type of the GPU, we are
inclined to think of the "Black Corps" as the guard of the
swastika revolution, of the connoisseurs of the "Siegrunen",
the "Runenblitz" and the skull symbolizing the oath of loyalty
unto death, as the oath of an order in the higher sense of
tradition; as a spiritual solidarity which could become
supranational; we think of unity which could include tested
and equally attuned groups of different nations, all renewing
within themselves the great heroic and metaphysical views of
Aryan and Nordic spirituality, and thus forming the front
necessary for us when, as today and as in the near future,
there is danger of the decisive struggle breaking out against
the tide of dark forces bound to the symbols of the various
internationals.

J. Evola

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