Todi/Rome: Casa Editrice "Atanòr", [circa 1927]. Octavo (21.5 x 16 cm). Original printed wrappers; 313 pp. Some small tears to front cover and along spine, rubbing to extremities, small spot of damp staining to inside front cover, some pages loose from glued binding but all present, overall very good.

Julius Evola (1898-1974) was an Italian far-right philosopher in Fascist Italy with ties to Nazi Germany. He considered his values to be aristocratic, monarchist, masculine, traditionalist, heroic, and reactionary. Early in his life he was attracted to the avant-garde, briefly associated with Marinetti's Futurist movement, and became a Dada artist after serving in World War I but gave up painting in his twenties and dived into the world of the occult and of esotericism. He studied Eastern mysticism, German idealism, Hermeticism, traditionalism, the metaphysics of war and sex, Tantra, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, the Holy Grail, and other ideas. He was also a co-founder, along with Arturo Reghini and other Italian esotericists, of Gruppo di Ur, whose aim was to provide a "soul" to the Fascist movement through the revival of ancient Roman religion.

According to a scholar, Evola's writings are consistently "antiegalitarian, antiliberal, antidemocratic, and antipopular systems in the twentieth century". His works contains themes of misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and attacks on Christianity and the Catholic Church. Evola was in favor of Fascist Italy's racial laws and became Italy's leading "racial philosopher". He fled to Nazi Germany in 1943 after the fall of the Fascist regime, but returned to Rome to help organize a radical-right group.

This work dates to early in Evola's writing career. His first published political work came in out in 1925. This volume is divided into three sections: "Lo Spirito dei Tantra in Relazione ad Oriente ed Occidente"; "La Teoria della Potenza"; and "La Tecnica della Potenza". It is somewhat of a transitional work, sandwiched between the beginning of Evola's speculations in Eastern thought and his full conversion. This intellectual work blends Eastern and Western ideas together. Incredibly scarce; although a similar title from the 1940s by Evola on tantric yoga is found in various institutions, as of August 2023, OCLC only locates two holdings of this earlier work in North American libraries.

Book ID: 53033

Price: $1,350.00