John Dunn

Anyone can ‘let there be light’ at the flick of a switch, but remain impotent all the same. Superiority is not based on power, but rather power is based on superiority. This was the critical point of Julius Evola’s (pictured) conception of power, which was not based on controlling more and more but, on the contrary, was about renunciation. Evola meant by this a ‘masculine’ renunciation based on ‘not needing anything’ and on ‘being satisfied’. He might well have been influence by Carlo Michelstaedter on this point.

In the revised German version of his first political book, Heidnischer Imperialismus [Pagan Imperialism], Evola argued that he who understands the relationship between power and superiority will also understand how ‘renunciation can be a condition for the path to the highest power, and he can also comprehend the concealed logic, according to which [...] ascetics, saints, and initiates suddenly and naturally develop suggestive and supra-sensual powers which are stronger than any power of human beings and things’. (English translation quoted from Hans Thomas Hakl, Deification as a Core Theme in Julius Evola’s Esoteric Works.)

© John Dunn.