Evola sets out in this book to investigate the metaphysics of sex. He uses the term “metaphysics” in two ways. First, metaphysics means the “first principles” of a thing. Second, metaphysics means the “science that goes beyond the physical” (from the Introduction).
Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (d. 19 Mayıs 1898 - ö. 11 Mayıs 1974) politika, felsefe, tarih ve Tradisyonalist bakış açısından dini konularda yazıları olan bir yazardır. Nazi Almanyası'nın "Ari kökenlere dönüş" fikirlerini desteklemesiyle tanınmıştır.
Mito del sangue 1938 (Türkçe Kanın mitolojisi) yazısı ile beden ırkçılığına karşı ruhsal ırkçılığı önemsedi.
Eserleri
- The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art (1931)
- Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga (1934)
- The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit (1937)
- The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts (1943)
- Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (1953)
- Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex (1958)
- Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (1961)
- Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest (1974)
- The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries (1977)
- Zen: The Religion of the Samurai (1981)
- Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times (1984)
- Taoism: The Magic, the Mysticism (1993)
- Mito del sangue 1938 (Türkçe Kanın mitolojisi)
- Cavalcare la tigre (1961) (Türkçe Kaplana binmek)
Metaphysics of sex
In The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way and also Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex, Evola described the practice of sexual magic as an asceticism of action that allows one to achieve transcendent states through physical action, primarily sex. To explain the metaphysics of sex, Evola cites the original meaning of the word "orgy" as "the state of inspired exaltation that began the initiatory process in the ancient Greek mysteries. But when this exaltation of eros, itself akin to other experiences of a supersensual nature, becomes individualized as a longing that is only carnal, then it deteriorates and ends finally in the form constituted by mere "pleasure, or venereal lust"[23]
In his sexual philosophy, Evola followed the esoteric Hindu and Buddhist schools in the teaching of retention of semen as a means of ontological energization and ultimate self-mastery. "Virya, or spiritual manhood, if lost or wasted results in death and if withheld and conserved leads to life".[24] Evola considered Traditional chastity as signifying "control, limit, anti-titanic purity, overcoming of pride, and immaterial unshakability, rather than a moralistic and sexuophobic concept"[25]
Evola considered sex "the greatest magical force in nature", which through the magnetic polarity and complementary nature of the two sexes brings about the possibility of erotic transcendence. But, according to Evola homosexuality...forms a complex problem from the point of view of the metaphysics.[26]
He names eros as essence of Platonic love and sees its carnal development as a first stage in the fall. “Plato...referred not only to heterosexual love but also to love for epheboi and male paramours. Now let us consider "eros" in those of its exalted forms that are linked to the aesthetic factor, according to the Platonic sequence...We should pass...to rapture that can be aroused by incorporeal beauty...There is no real problem if the accidental starting point is a being of the same sex. The word "uranism," which some use to mean homosexuality, springs from Plato's...Aphrodite Urania...the goddess of a noble love which is not carnal and unconcerned with procreation, as is the love which has woman as its object... But...this eros...led increasingly to carnal developments as the ancient customs in Greece and Rome declined.”[27]
For him “If, therefore, we assume homosexuality to conform to these carnal conditions...then we may well describe it as a deviation...from the standpoint of the metaphysics of sex.” Refuting Plato, Evola sees homosexuality lacking magic force or transcendency. “It is inappropriate to apply, as Plato does, the metaphysical meaning made evident by the myth of the hermaphrodite to homosexual love or to love as practiced between pederasts or lesbians. In fact, in the case of such love, it is no longer allowable to speak of the impulse of the male or female principle, as present in the primordial being, to be reunited. The essential...loses its meaning, namely, the idea of the polarity and the complementary nature of the two sexes as the basis of the magnetism of love and of a "transcendency" in eros, and of the blinding and destructive revelation of the One.”[28]
Evola sees the two forms of homosexuality whether inborn or acquired, on a lower level. “To find an explanation it is necessary to descend to a lower level and examine various empirical possibilities. Normally two forms of homosexuality are distinguished in sexology: One has an inborn, natural character, whereas the other has an acquired character and is conditioned by psychological and sociological factors influenced by a person's environment. But in the second of these forms it is necessary to give a proper value to the distinction between forms having a vicious nature and forms that presuppose a latent predisposition which is aroused under given circumstances.” He sees inborn homosexuality as an incomplete sexual development. “It is important, however, not to consider the inborn form of homosexuality in a rigid way but to allow a certain possibility of variation. In natural homosexuality...the process of sexual development in its physical and, even more so, in its psychic aspects can be incomplete.”[28]
For Evola, acquired homosexuality is driving the contemporary homosexuality boom. “But it is necessary to...also bear in mind cases of regression...the surroundings and the general atmosphere of society can play a not unimportant part...In a civilization where equality is the standard, where differences are not linked, where promiscuity is in favor, where the ancient idea of 'being true to oneself' means nothing anymore—in such a splintered and materialistic society, it is clear that this phenomenon of regression and homosexuality should be particularly welcome, and therefore it is no way a surprise to see the alarming increase in homosexuality and the 'third sex' in the latest 'democratic' period, or an increase in sex changes to an extent unparalleled in other eras"[29]
Defining homosexuality furthermore Evola adds the decidedly manly pleasure and perversion driven “mutual masturbator” as a different variety of homosexual. “But the reference to...an incomplete process of the development of sex or to a regression, does not explain all the varieties of homosexuality. In fact, there have been male homosexuals who have not been effeminate...but even men of war, individuals decidedly manly in their appearance and behavior, powerful men who have had or could have had the most beautiful women at their disposal. Such homosexuality is hard to explain, and we have the right here to speak of deviation and perversion, or "vice" linked, perhaps, to a fashion...However, there is reason to suppose that it is merely a matter of "mutual masturbation" and that the conditioned reflexes are exploited for "pleasure" since not only the metaphysical but also the physical premises for a whole and destructive union are lacking.”[30]
Finally, Evola rebukes bisexuality for expressing a chaotic desire to try everything. “On the other hand, classical antiquity bears witness...(to)a bisexual attitude in which both women and young men were used...Here it seems that the governing motivation was simply the desire to try everything. However...we may also refer to the crude saying...that if one has had enough from a girl as a girl, she can always play the part of a boy...As to the claim for an ideal nature of hermaphroditic wholeness in the pederast who acts both as man and as woman sexually, that is obvious fallacious beyond the level of straightforward sensations; hermaphroditic wholeness can only be "sufficiency," for it has no need of another being and is to be sought at the level of a spiritual realization that excludes the nuances that the "magic of the two" can offer in heterosexual unions.” And Evola repudiates Turkish and Japanese homosexuality justifications through feelings of power. “Even the rationale sometimes found in countries such as Turkey and Japan, that homosexual possession gives a feeling of power, is not convincing. The pleasure of domination can also be felt with women and with other beings in situations free of sexual intercourse. Besides, such a pleasure could be involved only in a completely pathological context where it would develop into a true orgasm.” Thus Evola concludes that “when homosexuality is not "natural" or else cannot be explained in terms of incomplete inborn forms of sexual development, it must have the character of a deviation, a vice, or a perversion.”[31]
Even extreme erotic homosexual intensity has no higher meaning for Evola than experience rooted in the displacement of eros. “And if some instances of extreme erotic intensity in relations between homosexuals should be adduced, the explanation is to besought in the possibility of the displacement of eros. Indeed, it is enough to go through any treatise on sexual psychopathology to see in how many unthinkable situations the erotic potential of a human being can be aroused, sometimes to the level of orgiastic frenzy (from fetishism even to animal sodomy and necrophilia). The same anomalous background could include the case of homosexuality, although the latter is much more frequent: a displaced eros for which a being of the same sex can serve as a simple, occasional cause or support, as in so many cases of psychopathy, although it must wholly lack every profound dimension and every meaning higher than experience because of the absence of the necessary ontological and metaphysical premises.”[32]
Evola's attitude towards homosexuality is reflected in his reference to Plotinus, who deemed homosexual loves to be shameful and abnormal, like diseases of degenerate persons "which do not arise from the essence of being and are not the outcome of the development thereof" (Enneads, III).
Evola scorned modern pornography for being a "scanty source" of erotic experience, denouncing it as "dreadfully squalid not only in the facts and scenes described, but in its essence"[33]
Sex in the Modern Era
Evola argues that sexuality in the modern age has become depraved. His primary reference for this conclusion is the state of research on sex. He criticizes biological, sociological, psychological and sexological approaches to understanding sexuality as essentially shallow. Each discipline focuses on only one aspect, a lower aspect, of sexuality. Biologically deterministic arguments about sex -- that sexuality can be explained by the need to reproduce -- come under especially harsh criticism. Evola argues that the need to reproduce is one of the lowest aspects of and is in fact tangential to sexuality. He criticizes sexologists and investigators of sexuality from other disciplines for starting with lower, easier to understand aspects of sexuality (ie: reproduction) and deducing the higher aspects, the first principles, from them. Evola seeks instead to explain sexuality starting from first principles.
The Metaphysics of Sex
Evola sets out to deduce the first principles of sexuality. His starting point is Plato’s ‘’Symposium’’ and the myth of the hermaphrodite. A myth in which mankind, in its pure form is a “hermaphroditic” form and was only later divided into two sexes, as the result of a fall. Sexuality, however, is not a “purely” spiritual act. Instead, the sexual act brings the spirit and the body closer together in order to attain unity. Evola, therefore, criticizes theories which overemphasize love and beauty to the extent that the physical side of sexuality is excluded or even found profane. He criticizes the ideal of platonic love in this way. A final myth which Evola explores is that of the birth of Eros to Poros and Penia, which, Evola argues, makes the point that Eros is the product at once of rationality and irrationality, being and emptiness. Thus sex has the ability to make one both (either) full and (or) empty. It is both the unity of man and woman and the driving force behind the never ceasing impulse to procreate.
Transcendental Aspects of Profane Love
Drawing on numerous literary and mythological sources, Evola describes the manifestations of the transcendental state described in Part One in what he calls “Profane” love. Profane love is love (and sex) which does not have transcendency or unity as its object. This obviously includes sex for pleasure, but also sex for love. Evola describes how the language of lovers implicitly includes references to the transcendental. In other ways too, modern manifestations of love show their roots in the divine, transcendental metaphysics of sex. Perhaps the most important of these is the way that lovers use references to death during courtship (as well as coitus). For example, saying “I would die without you” or referring to the orgasm as the “little death.” This language refers back to the contradiction in the myth of Poros and Pennia, in which sex is both life and death and therefore hints at the true nature of eros.
Man and Woman
In this section Evola describes the archetypes of absolute man and woman according to his traditional outlook. Man is represented by the sky, godliness, and form. Woman is represented by the earth and the waters, nature, and matter. Perhaps the two most important analogies are those of form and matter. The male principle is active and abstract, and (especially during copulation) gives form to the concrete and passive matter that is woman. Evola goes into considerable detail describing basic characteristics of the absolute male and absolute female that these paradigms encompass and their effects on relations between the sexes. Evola is careful to point out that all men and all women contain aspects of the absolute woman and man. Contrary to modern theory, however, Evola casts this as the failure of individual men and women to embody their divine character and as a result of the fall. Evola further argues that the “true difference between the natures of man and woman in no way implies a difference of worth” -- in other words that which is divine in woman is profane in man and vice versa, but is, in fact, divine in its proper place.
Transcendent Sexuality
The second half of the book is devoted to historical examples of the kind of transcendental sexuality Evola describes in the first half. He considers Tantric sexuality, chastity as a means of transforming the sexual drive into higher forms, and pagan orgiastic rites among others. The Table of Contents below provides a good summary of the topics he broaches.
Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Eros and Sexual Love
The Evolutionary Prejudice - Love and Sex - Eros and the Instinct for Reproduction - The Myth and Genius of the Species - Eros and the Tendencey toward Pleasure - Sensual Pleasure - The Magnetic Theory of Love - The Degrees of Sexual Development - Physical Sex and Inner Sex - Conditional Nature and Forms of Erotic Attraction
II. The Metaphysics of Sex
The Myth of the Hermaphrodite - Eros and the Various Degrees of Intoxication with It - The Biological Treatment and the Fall of Eros - Aphrodite Urania; Eros and Beauty - Lust and the Myth of Poros and Penia - Appendix - Homosexuality
III. Phenomena of Transcendency in Profane Love
Sex and Human Values- "Everlasting Love," Jealousy, and Sexual Pride - Phenomena of Transcendency in Puberty - Love, the Heart, Dreams, and Death - The Love-Pain-Death Complex - Sensual Pleasure and Suffering: The Masochist-Sadist Complex - Erotic Ecstasy and Mystic Ecstasy - The Experience of Coitus - The Metaphysics of Modesty - The Meaning of the Orgy - Appendix: Marquis de Sade and the "Way of the Left Hand" - Rasputin and the Sect of the Khlysti
IV. Gods and Goddesses, Men and Women
Mythology, Ontology, and Psychology - The Metaphysical Dyad - Demeter Archetypes and Aphrodite Archetypes, the Virgin, and Ultimate Nakedness - Typical Differentations of Manhood in Myth - Man and Female in Manifestation - On the Daemonic in the Feminine and the Symbolism of the Inverted Coitus - The Phallus and Menstruation - Male and Female Psychology - Woman as Mother and Woman as Lover - Pity, Sexuality, and Cruelty in Woman - The Fascination of Woman and Activity and Passivity in Sexual Love - The Ethics of the Sexes
V. Sacred Ceremonies and Evocations
Wedlock as "Mystery" in the World of Tradition - Christianity and Sexuality - Sacred Prostitution and Holy Marriages - Incubus and Succubus; Fetishism and Evocatory Processes - Evocation Processes in the Chivalrous Love of the Middle Ages - The Initiatory Experiences of the Worshippers of Love - Appendix; The Meaning of the Sabbat and the Black Mass - The Doctrine of the Hermaphrodite in the Christian Mysticism
VI. Sex in the Realm of Initiations and Magic
Transmutations and the Commandment of Chastity - The Techniques of Endogenous Transmutation in Kundalini-Yoga and Taoism - Sex in the Kabbala and Eleusinian Mysteries - Tantric Sexual Practices - Tantric Sexual Practices and Their Dangers - Secret Sexual Practices in Chinese Taoism - Arab Sexual Practices and Hermetic Symbology - The Myriam and the "Fire Magic" - The "Light of Sex" and the "Law of Telema" - The Presuppositions of Operative Sexual Magic
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