TRADITION
Traditionalism
Traditionalism as oppsoed to Modernity
Julius Evola’s concept of Tradition
is not simply about customs or heritage—it is a metaphysical absolute, a vertical axis of divine truth that transcends history, race, and culture. For Evola, Tradition (with a capital T) is not invented or evolved—it is received, primordial, and sacred.
What is Tradition, according to Evola?
“Tradition is not the handing down of things or customs from the past, but a presence that is ever living and actual.”
— Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World
• Transcendent Origin: Tradition originates from a higher, spiritual dimension—a superhuman source. It is not a social invention.
• Primordial Unity: All true traditions express a single metaphysical truth, though veiled in different symbols, rites, and myths.
• Initiatory Transmission: Tradition is passed not by birth or biology, but by initiation, by awakening to its inner essence.
• Integral Hierarchy: Tradition affirms order, hierarchy, and kingship as reflections of divine principles on Earth.
• Action in Harmony with the Absolute: True action is based on alignment with the cosmic order—Dharma, Logos, or Tao.
Why is Tradition important?
According to Evola, modern man is cut off from the Axis Mundi, the vertical connection to the eternal. Without Tradition:
• Man forgets who he is.
• The world collapses into materialism, relativism, and chaos.
• Society loses its sacred center.
Tradition provides:
• Spiritual orientation
• Transcendent meaning
• Access to initiatory knowledge
• A framework for kingship, virtue, and heroic being
“Modern man is a ruin, a child of a fallen world. The return to Tradition is the only true revolution.”
Evola was not nostalgic. He did not seek to preserve the past, but to reconnect with the eternal. He called for spiritual warriors, inner aristocrats, and regal souls who could embody Tradition in the midst of a fallen age.
FOUNDATIONAL QUOTES ON TRADITION
“Tradition is not the handing down of forms from the past, but a reality that is ever living and actual. It is something supra-temporal, not a product of history but a standard by which history is to be judged.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 2
“What is truly traditional is not what is old, but what is eternal.”
— Men Among the Ruins, ch. 5
“Tradition is the presence of a superior world, and of a nonhuman authority, in a world of man.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 1
ON MODERNITY VS TRADITION
“Modern man is a being with no tradition and no roots, a creature of contingency and mass suggestion. He floats, directionless, amidst the ruins of all sacred orders.”
— Ride the Tiger, Preface
“The crisis of the modern world is due to a forgetting of the sacred and an abandonment of the supernatural. The remedy is not a return to the past, but a reconquest of what was above the past.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 1
“To revolt against the modern world is to restore the dimension of the sacred, of the vertical, and of the transcendent.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 3
ON THE HEROIC TRADITION & INITIATION
“Initiation is the transmission of a force and a light, of something that does not belong to the human domain. It is Tradition in its most concentrated and potent form.”
— The Mystery of the Grail, ch. 2
“What is needed is a heroic openness to the transcendent, a virile willingness to be broken and remade by the metaphysical flame.”
— Ride the Tiger, ch. 10
“The Tradition lives only in the being who has conquered his lower nature and become a pillar between heaven and earth.”
— The Mystery of the Grail, ch. 4
ON KINGS, PRIESTS, AND THE SACRED CENTER
“Every traditional civilization is structured around a sacred center—a King, a Throne, a Temple, a Fire—that links the human with the divine. This axis is not symbolic; it is ontological.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 5
“The king was not just a ruler, but the human face of the transcendent principle. In his victory, the gods themselves were seen to triumph.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 6
“The true priest-king was not of the blood but of the spirit—he reigned by initiation, not by birth.”
— The Mystery of the Grail, ch. 6
For Evola, Tradition (with a capital T) is of non-human origin—not merely a cultural inheritance or historical product, but a metaphysical reality that precedes, transcends, and occasionally manifests through civilizations.
“Tradition is the presence of a superior world, and of a nonhuman authority, in a world of man.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 1
He saw it as an invisible vertical axis—a spiritual inheritance from the transcendent order, akin to the Platonic Nous, the Vedic Ṛta, or the Hermetic Logos. It is neither invented nor evolved, but revealed, preserved, and transmitted through initiatic chains.
Was Evola nostalgic for ancient societies?
No—not in the romantic or reactionary sense. He did not advocate for a return to ancient India, Egypt, Rome, or medieval Europe as they historically existed. He revered those civilizations insofar as they embodied fragments of the Primordial Tradition, but he saw even the best of them as imperfect reflections—shadows on the wall of the Cave.
In his words:
“Even the most luminous traditional civilizations were only approximations of the transcendent archetype. The task is not to copy them, but to rediscover the invisible axis they were aligned to.”
— (Paraphrased from Revolt and The Mystery of the Grail)
Evola judged civilizations—ancient or modern—not by their aesthetics, laws, or customs, but by whether they were ordered toward the transcendent, whether they had a sacred center, a regal-sacerdotal principle, and a path for inner ascent and transfiguration.
⸻
He did not seek regression, but vertical reconnection. His call was for individuals to become “Men of Tradition”—those who live in alignment with eternal principles, even amidst the ruins of modernity.
“The return to Tradition is not a return to the past, but a reconquest of what was above the past.”
— Revolt Against the Modern World, ch. 1