• Volume I includes translations of rare texts alongside rites, practices, and magical knowledge, including instructions for creating an etheric double, speaking words of power, interacting with entities, and creating a “magical chain”
• Volume II offers studies of mystery traditions throughout history and shares authentic initiatic wisdom and a rigorous selection of initiatory exercises
• Volume III explores esoteric practices for individual development and realization of immortal and divine potential, handed down from a primordial tradition
In 1927 Julius Evola and other leading Italian esotericists formed the mysterious UR group. The purpose of this group was to study and practice ancient rituals from the mystery traditions of the world, both East and West, in order to attain a state of superhuman consciousness and power to allow them to act magically on the world. They produced a monthly journal containing techniques for spiritual realization, accounts of personal experiences, translations of ancient texts, and original essays on the occult. Many years later, in 1971, Evola gathered these essays into three volumes.
Volume I collects rites, practices, and magical knowledge, including instructions for creating an etheric double, speaking words of power, using fragrances, interacting with entities, and creating a “magical chain.” It also includes translations of rare texts such as the Tibetan teachings of the Thunderbolt Diamond Path, the Mithraic mystery cult’s “Grand Papyrus of Paris,” and the Greco-Egyptian magical text De Mysteriis. Volume II shares authentic initiatic wisdom and a rigorous selection of initiatory exercises, including instructions for creating the diaphanous body of the Opus magicum, and establishing initiatic consciousness after death. It also offers studies of mystery traditions throughout history. Volume III, more than the others, bears the personal stamp of Julius Evola. It explores esoteric practices for individual development, handed down from a primordial tradition and discernable in alchemy, Hermetism, religious doctrines, Tantra, Taoism, Buddhism, Vedanta, and the pagan mysteries of the West.
Available together as a deluxe boxed set for the first time in English, these volumes present the steps necessary to purify the soul with the light of knowledge and the fire of dedication, as well as allowing the reader to be liberated from conventional dogmas—religious, political, scientific, and psychological—and see with the clearer eye of realization.
Julius Evola (19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974), born Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esoteric scholar. Born in Rome to a family of the Sicilian landed gentry, Evola was raised a strict Catholic. Despite this, his life was characterised by 'an anti-bourgeois approach' hostile to both 'the dominant tradition of the West—Christianity and Catholicism—and to contemporary civilization—the 'modern world' of democracy and materialism'.
By turns 'engineering student, artillery officer, Dadaist poet and painter, journalist, alpinist, scholar, linguist, Orientalist, and political commentator', he has been described as a 'rare example of universality in an age of specialization'. Yet behind it all lay a singular emphasis on, and pursuit of, a 'direct relationship to the Absolute'. For Evola, 'the center of all things was not man, but rather the Transcendent.' This metaphysical conviction can be seen to have determined both Evola's stance on socio-political issues, and his antipathetic attitude towards 'all professional, sentimental and family routines'.
The author of many books on esoteric, political and religious topics (including The Hermetic Tradition, The Doctrine of Awakening and Eros and the Mysteries of Love), his best-known work remains Revolt Against the Modern World, a trenchant critique of modern civilisation that has been described as 'the gateway to his thought'. Since his death, also in Rome, his writings have influenced right-wing, reactionary and conservative political thought not only in his native Italy, but throughout continental Europe and, increasingly, the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, he should not be considered primarily as a political thinker, but rather as an exponent of the wider Traditionalist School that encompasses the work of such individuals as René Guénon, Titus Burckhardt and Frithjof Schuon.
Hmm. Finished the first volume but this doesn’t discuss anything too foreign to someone who’s aware of symbolisms or even thought about poetry on a deeper level. Will make a more holistic judgment once I’m done with the other two volumes as well.
When Evola fled Rome before it fell to the Allied Forces in World War II, the only collection of writings he brought with him to Salo were the three volumes that made up the collective studies of the UR Group, titled 'Introduction to Magic'. Volume One largely features practical techniques for the 'initiatic sciences', with an overarching thesis of Hermetism being a veiled form of Buddhist and Tantric techniques. Volumes Two and Three serve to broaden esoteric understanding through a myriad of different mediums, from poems to translations of ancient texts and even an alpinist's trip report of his ascent in the Dolomites.
The suggestive title does not betray the fact that these books, with over 1200 pages of content, make for excellent supplementary material of the Baron's other works, although it is by no means compulsory for someone looking to understand Evola's philosophy. If you only have time to read one of the books, I recommend Volume One.