Q334147

Giulio Cesare Andrea "Julius" Evola ( Italian: [ˈɛːvola]; 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974) was an Italian far-right philosopher and writer. Evola regarded his values as traditionalist, aristocratic, martial and imperialist. An esoteric thinker in Fascist Italy, he also had ties to Nazi Germany. In the post-war era, he was an ideological mentor of the Italian neo-fascist and militant right.

Evola was born in Rome and served as an artillery officer in the First World War. He became an artist within the Dada movement, but gave up painting in his twenties; he said he considered suicide until he had a revelation while reading a Buddhist text. In the 1920s he delved into the occult; he wrote on Western esotericism and Eastern mysticism, developing his doctrine of "magical idealism". His writings blend various ideas of German idealism, Eastern doctrines, traditionalism and the Conservative Revolution of the interwar period. Evola believed that mankind is living in the Kali Yuga, a Dark Age of unleashed materialistic appetites. To counter this and call in a primordial rebirth, Evola presented a "world of Tradition". Tradition for Evola was not Christian—he did not believe in God—but rather an eternal supernatural knowledge with values of authority, hierarchy, order, discipline and obedience.