Il Gruppo di UR-KRUR/en

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The UR Group (later KRUR) is the main 20th-century Italian collective initiatic laboratory: a non-public esoteric journal (limited circulation, reserved for initiates and serious inquirers) published monthly between January 1927 and December 1929, in which the protagonists of Italian esotericism of the period participated under pseudonyms. The name UR simultaneously evokes: the Indo-European root ur- (origin, primordial), the Sumerian deity Ur, the reversed Germanic fire rune, the Latin ur (I burn, primordial fire), and the sacred formula Aum. The subtitle is Journal of Directions for a Science of the Self. When the break between Reghini and Evola occurred in 1929, the journal changed its name to KRUR (KR + UR, KR being the root of Krishna, Krónos, Krys-tós) and continued for one year under Evola's sole direction. Then it ceased. In 1931 Evola published La Tradizione Ermetica, which is its public synthesis.

0. The traditions the Group inherits and attempts to clarify

The UR-KRUR Group is neither an innovation nor a separate school. It is the 20th-century Italian attempt to make operationally clear the initiatic sciences that at least seven European traditional lines had transmitted in a hermetic-veiled manner through the centuries. The Group's value in the history of Italian esotericism and in the wiki cluster map lies precisely in this function of clarification: taking the traditions that were moving away from the modern reader's understanding and retransmitting their technical core in contemporary Italian language, without gratuitous esotericism but without betraying the substance.

The seven lines converging in the Group:

Greco-Egyptian and Medieval-Renaissance Hermetic-Alchemical Line — from the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes through the Corpus Hermeticum, Zosimos, Olympiodorus, Albertus Magnus, Pietro d'Abano, Philalethes, Kircher, Pernety. The journal publishes translations and precise commentaries of these authors (the article «De Pharmaco Catholico» in UR 1927, the articles on the Art of the Philosophers of Hermes in UR 1928, the Notes on Occult Morphology in KRUR)
17th-century Italian Hermetic Line — Borri → Palombara → Gualdi → Aurea Rosacroce. The article «An Italian Alchemical Lead Codex» by Pietro Negri (UR 1927) is the explicit link: Reghini studies the traditions of 17th-century Italy in the laboratory and picks up its thread
Egyptian Magical-Initiatic Line — the Paris Magical Papyri, the tradition of the Mysteries of Mithras, the Eleusinian and Orphic-Pythagorean mysteries, the Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro (Cagliostro e il Rito Egizio), the filiations of Misraïm and Memphis, the Arcana Arcanorum, Kremmerz and the Osiridean Egyptian Order. The Apathanatismos (UR 1927 nn. 3-5) directly translates the ritual of immortalization from the Paris Magical Papyrus; in KRUR Evola publishes the essay «Introduction to Magic according to G. Kremmerz»
Pasqually-Martinist Line — Pasqually → Saint-Martin → Willermoz → Il Martinismo. The concept of the «reintegrated by the Art» which KRUR 1929 identifies with the «son of Hermes» (cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XV.7) comes precisely from the Martinist vocabulary, where «reintegration» is Pasqually's technical term. The Group recognizes and takes it up
European Magnetic Line — Mesmer → Puységur → Du Potet → Cahagnet → Donato → Regazzoni. The «fluid» of the European magnetists is explicitly recognized by Evola in UR as the Mercury of the alchemists (cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XII.2 and XV.2), and the authentic operative magnetists are included among the «sons of Hermes» (cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XV.7)
Chivalric-Templar Line and the Fedeli d'Amore — Templars → Italo-Iberian confraternity of Fedeli d'Amore (Dante, Cavalcanti, Cecco d'Ascoli) → late medieval chivalric orders → Strict Templar Observance → CBCS → chivalric tradition. The essay by Pietro Negri «The Secret Language of the Fedeli d'Amore» (UR 1928, cfr. I Fedeli dAmore sec. V-bis) is the most important historiographical hinge ever produced in Italy on this subject, and connects the Dantean confraternity to the Aurea Rosacroce and the Principes de Mercy / Knights of the Sacred Delta
Indo-Tantric-Tibetan Line — the Bhagavadgītā, the Upaniṣads, the Tantras, the Tao Te Ching, the Buddhist sūtras. Serpent Wisdom by Iagla (UR 1927) comments on Laotze as a paradigm of the Accomplished/dvija; The Yoga of Power by Evola (originally L'Uomo come potenza 1926) systematizes Tantric doctrine for the Italian reader. The correspondences between European alchemy, Chinese neidan and Indian rasāyana are noted in the Group fifty years before Gordon White (The Alchemical Body, 1996, cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XV.6)

The historical task the Group set for itself is to converge these seven lines — until then jealous of their own autonomy and specific language — into a single unitary science that the serious modern reader could study. Not eclectic syncretism but recognition that behind the seven languages there is one same Art, practiced in different times and places with different operative nuances but with the same goal: the «reintegrated by the Art» / «son of Hermes» / Accomplished / dvija / Adept / Perfect Master.

For this reason, whoever reads UR-KRUR must not read it in isolation: every article of the Group must be read as a technical clarification of some aspect of these seven traditional lines. The wiki pages dedicated to the Group (Apathanatismos, Le Tre Vie — Magia Mistica Yoga, Morfologia Occulta, Le Acque Corrosive, Saggezza Serpentina — Dvija Caduceo Kundalini, Sub Specie Interioritatis, La Legge degli Enti, Operazioni Magiche a Due Vasi — Sdoppiamento, Magia dellImmagine, La Presenza (tradizione ermetica)) are nodes of a network connecting the entire map of the hermetic cluster.

I. Origin, name and project

The project was born in 1926 from the meeting between Reghini (an already expert esotericist, Pythagorean, high-degree Freemason) and Evola (a young idealistic philosopher in the process of converting to operative esotericism). The two — assisted by a core that expanded in the first months — conceived a collective experiment that was simultaneously:

Esoteric journal — essays, translations of traditional texts, operative instructions published monthly
Magnetic working chain — the collaborators practiced together, at a distance, agreed-upon exercises and discussed their results
Restoration of the Western tradition — recovery of the Pythagorean, Hermetic-Alchemical, Mithraic-Roman, Kabbalistic, Germanic and Celtic legacy, in contemporary Italian language
Explicit operative line — not «studies» in the academic sense but indications for exercise verified by the group's operators

[VERIFIED] The subtitle «Journal of Directions for a Science of the Self» clarifies the program: not a science about the Self (psychology, phenomenology) but a science of the Self — that is, a technical knowledge operated by the Self and for the benefit of its transformation. Consistent with Evola's formula of the «absolute individual» (title of his philosophical books of 1927 and 1930).

II. The pseudonyms and the core of the Group

The collaborators write under pseudonyms, according to the Rosicrucian practice of reserving identity for the benefit of the work. Boella-Galli (cfr. Confraternita dellAurea Rosacroce) recalls that «among the Hermetists and the Rosicrucians the system of pseudonyms, anagrams and anonymity was in force». UR adopts the same principle:

Pseudonym	Identity	Notes
Leo	Julius Evola	the solar-mercurial lion of the zodiac sign, and the regal quality
Pietro Negri / Tikaipòs	Arturo Reghini	Negri = alchemical «black stone»; Tikaipòs = Greek anagram for the hexameter translation of the Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Iagla	Ercole Quadrelli	mathematician and initiate from Florence; the name evokes Hebrew-Cabalistic letter play
Abraxa	Giulio Parise	the name of the Gnostic god (cfr. IAO nella tradizione e nella Scuola)
Luce	Aniceto Del Massa	already a baptismal name, chosen as a pseudonym for its hermetic transparency
Arvo	Guido De Giorgio	scholar of primitive and indigenous American traditions; «Arvo» = the «discovered», the open
Agarda	uncertain identity	probable pseudonym of a single Roman collaborator
Ea	Ercole Quadrelli (?) or other	Assyrian-Babylonian divine name, god of water and wisdom
Breno	uncertain identity	Celtic-Gallic name
Sirio, Hismavat, Arom, Taurulus, Narayna Svami, Apro, Arco	various identities of the core	minor pseudonyms for single essays

Most of the pseudonyms are identified today (cfr. Evola e Reghini e la Tradizione Ermetica sec. II); some remain documentarily uncertain — not due to loss but by the collaborators' own choice.

III. The editorial structure: doctrine, practice, experiences, criticism

[VERIFIED] The three volumes are structured on a four-part articulation that openly declares the operative program:

Doctrine — theoretical essays on the esoteric tradition, citation of primary sources, exposition of principles
Practice — concrete operative instructions: chains, breathing, knowledge of the subtle body, work on rhythms, magic of the rite, etc.
Experiences — personal testimonies of work done and its results (e.g. Sub specie interioritatis by Pietro Negri-Reghini)
Criticism — essays on contemporary schools and currents (Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Spiritism, etc.) to delimit one's own field

This articulation is not theoretical but ritual: it replicates the structure of classical alchemical work (teaching → operation → effect → discrimination).

IV. UR 1927 (year I): main contents

[VERIFIED] From the analytical index of the volume on Drive:

Doctrine

Essays on Roman, Mithraic, Pythagorean, Hermetic traditions
Studies by Pietro Negri (Reghini) on Pythagoreanism and sacred mathematics
Pietro Negri / Sub specie interioritatis (pp. 168 ff.) — the direct experience of metaphysical realization by Reghini at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (circa 1913); see Evola e Reghini e la Tradizione Ermetica sec. I for the full quotation
Essays by Leo (Evola) on magic, on the experience of the subtle body, on sleep

Practice

Abraxa / Introduction to the Science of the Magi — Knowledge of the «Waters» (the waters here are in the alchemical-Marian sense: the Divine Water = Myriam = Mary, cfr. Evola e Reghini e la Tradizione Ermetica sec. III)
Iagla / Serpent Wisdom — the dvija (twice-born), the Caduceus as a symbol
Arvo / Conscious thought — Relaxation — Silence (the propaedeutics of attention)
Luce / Opus Magicum — Concentration — Silence (work on the «phenomenological void»)
Abraxa / The Hermetic Caduceus and the Mirror (precise technical passages)
Instruction for the knowledge of the Breath (cfr. Il Respiro Tripartito e i Tre Campi di Cinabro)
Magical operations with two vessels — The doubling (double consciousness, the «double»)
Iagla / The law of beings
The Chains (cfr. Le Catene Magnetiche di Loggia) — group ritual operations
Instructions for Ceremonial Magic (taken from Agrippa in the Reghini-Fidi version)

Experiences

Pietro Negri / Sub specie interioritatis (already cited — Florence 1913 experience)
Pietro Negri / Knowledge of the subtle body — technical descriptions of one's own work
Pietro Negri / A lead codex — on the alchemical work of a historical manuscript
Pietro Negri / Adventures and misadventures of magical work

V. UR 1928 (year II): main contents

[VERIFIED] From the index of the volume on Drive, some emblematic titles:

Doctrine

Woman and the modalities of initiation — important essay: the integration of the feminine in the initiatic system (Cagliostrian parallel of the Loggia d'Adozione, cfr. Cagliostro e il Rito Egizio sec. V)
Iagla / The logic of the subsoil (the chthonic dimension, the dark)
Pythagoras — The Golden Verses (translation by Tikaipòs/Reghini with commentary)
Milarepa — Three songs — Tibetan Buddhist opening

Practice

Ur / Chain instructions (the practice of magnetic chain in the Group)
Abraxa / Magic of the Rite — Magic of Creation — Magic of Conjunctions
Leo (Evola) / Notes for the animation of the Centers — work on the chakras in a Western framework
Iagla / On the Corrosive Waters — the dissolving dimension of alchemical work
Luce / Opus Magicum: The Diaphanous
Arvo / Magic of Statuettes — operative use of material supports
Krur / Notes on occult morphology and on spiritual corporeality

Experiences

X / The Double and solar consciousness
Pietro Negri / On the contingent opposition to spiritual development (concrete difficulties)
Ea / Some effects of magical discipline: the dissociation of the mixed

Criticism

Pietro Negri / On the Western Tradition — fundamental essay: the vindication of an autonomous Western path distinct from Orientalist currents
The secret language of the Fedeli d'Amore — the 14th-century Italian poets (Dante, Cavalcanti, Cino) as an initiatic school disguised as love poetry; an essay that anticipates Evola's 1937 book The Mystery of the Grail
Hismavat / Tradition and Realization — Little notes on Asceticism and Anti-Europe
Ea / Esotericism and the overcoming of morality
Arco / On the Nordic-Atlantic tradition
Ur / Position and solution of the conflict between natural science and magic — Idealism and metapsychics

VI. KRUR 1929 (year III): main contents

[VERIFIED] After the break with Reghini, the journal becomes KRUR (year III) under Evola's sole direction. The subtitle changes: «Introduction to MAGIC as a Science of the Self». More open, more «Evolian» and less «Reghinian». From the index of the volume:

Doctrine

Meaning of Aristocracy
The Dawn of the West
The Mechanism of consciousness (Apro)
What is Metaphysical Reality (Ea)
Heroic symbols and sport (Ea) — singular essay: asceticism through sport
The origin of species according to esotericism (Arvo)
Catholicism and esotericism (Ea) — important essay on compatibility or incompatibility
Spiritual authority and temporal power (Ea)
The Hermetic Tradition (pp. 154-201 + 251-307) — [fundamental] is the first nucleus of the book that Evola will publish in 1931 under the same title
The Tree, the Serpent and the Titans
The Lord of the Vertex and the Absolute Individual
The four Beings in Man — corresponding to the doctrine of the four bodies that Boyer expounds seventy years later

Practice

Abraxa / The cloud and the stone
Breno / Modern initiation and Eastern initiation
Iagla / On the Law of Beings
Leo / Human rhythms and cosmic rhythms — Evola on rhythmic asceticism
Narayna Svami / Transmutation of man and metals
Abraxa / The Magic of Victory — Knowledge of sacrificial action
[VERIFIED IMPORTANT] Introduction to Magic according to G. Kremmerz — Evola integrates Kremmerz into the KRUR program. Essay-testimony of Evola's appreciation for the Kremmerzian current (cfr. Evola e Reghini e la Tradizione Ermetica sec. IV for placement)
Agarda / Notes on action in the passions

Experiences

Experiences: The Crown of Light (Arom) — personal realization
Experiences (Taurulus)
Chain experiences — the collective producing common states; directly connects to Le Catene Magnetiche di Loggia

VII. The Evola-Reghini break (1929)

[CONSOLIDATED HISTORIOGRAPHY — primary source to consult for details] The break between Reghini and Evola occurs during 1929, halfway through the third year of common work. The historiographically documented reasons are multiple:

Political divergence — Reghini was Pythagorean and paganizing, anti-Roman-Catholic, markedly republican; Evola, while critical of the Church, was spiritual-traditionalist non-democratic, more open to fascism (though critically and never fully integrated)
Esoteric divergence — Reghini privileged the Pythagorean-Italic line (sacred mathematics, Templar geometry, Roman Mithraism); Evola pushed towards a broader synthesis that also integrated Eastern traditions (yoga, Buddhism, tantra)
Personal divergence — both personalities were strong; testimonies agree in describing a clash of temperaments as well as programs
Question of UR's orientation — Reghini saw the journal as a restoration of the Roman-Pythagorean tradition; Evola saw it as a construction of an individual path of realization using all available tradition

The break is sharp and lasting. Reghini leaves UR; KRUR continues for a year with Evola; in 1931 Evola publishes The Hermetic Tradition without explicit mention of Reghini, although the alchemical debt is readable between the lines. Reghini reacts with bitterness and subsequently publishes his positions in other writings (For the restoration of Pythagorean geometry; The sacred numbers in the Pythagorean Masonic tradition). In 1944 Reghini writes his autobiographical memoirs (Le parole sacre e di passo), but his main, and in some ways definitive, work will always remain his collaboration with UR. He dies in 1946 in Budrio (Bologna), shortly after the end of the war.

VIII. The legacy

UR/KRUR has had on 20th-century Italian esotericism an influence disproportionate to its small original readership (a few hundred):

The Hermetic Tradition (Evola, 1931) — public synthesis that brought Hermeticism into Italian culture
Ride the Tiger (Evola, 1961) — mature essay exploring the same path in an existential key
Mario Praz — the great literary scholar, indirectly influenced by the esoteric climate
Elémire Zolla — even if polemically, he engages with UR
Massimo Scaligero (1906-1980) — although a disciple of Rudolf Steiner, he knows and cites UR (see Il Respiro Tripartito e i Tre Campi di Cinabro for the link between Scaligero and the Osiridean-Kremmerzian practice kept alive by the School)
Edizioni Mediterranee (Rome) will gather UR's legacy by publishing the three volumes as Introduction to Magic starting in 1971, in three tomes that remain today the main editorial reference (fully available version on this wiki's Drive)

Within the School's ambit, UR/KRUR is considered a laboratory document — testimony of a generation of Italian esotericists who worked seriously in a collective. Not «authority» to be accepted, but study material of the highest level, with great strengths (the synthesis of the Western tradition, the opening to Pythagoreanism) and with some necessary cautions (the excess of Doric dryness can make the Evolian-Reghinian work fragile for those who do not come from a solid inner formation — cfr. the Kremmerzian principle «he who has not made gold externally...» from La Doctrine du Corps Immortel sec. III).

IX. Placement with respect to the wiki cluster

With respect to the operative pages

UR/KRUR documents in 20th-century Italian practice all the practices that the wiki has mapped as operative:

Magnetic chains — Ur «Chain instructions», «Chain experiences», «The Chains» in various volumes
Breath — «Instruction for the knowledge of the Breath» (UR 1927)
Voice and mantra — various interventions on Pythagoras, Orpheus, Vedas
Work on the centers — Leo (Evola) «Notes for the animation of the Centers» (UR 1928)
Four bodies — «The four Beings in Man» (KRUR 1929)

With respect to Cagliostro

UR/KRUR explicitly takes up Cagliostro (cfr. Chain experiences) and the operative dimension of the Haute Maçonnerie Égyptienne. Evola publishes in KRUR the essay «Introduction to Magic according to G. Kremmerz» which is the Italian confluence of the Kremmerzian-Osiridean-Cagliostrian current.

With respect to the Arcana Arcanorum

UR/KRUR knows and cites the AA of the Scala di Napoli, even if it does not integrate them institutionally. The link passes through the Kremmerzian current that Evola recognizes.

With respect to Giudicelli

Giudicelli (1988) — French — takes up many of the themes that UR/KRUR had already treated fifty years earlier in Italian. The convergence is not due to direct influence (Giudicelli and the French circles of the 1980s do not seem to have read UR) but to a common source: both draw from the European Hermetic tradition, and find themselves expressing — in different times and languages — the same operative doctrine.

With respect to the 18th-century Aurea Rosacroce

The Confraternity of the Golden Rosicrucians (Schmidt, Hund, Wöllner — 18th-century Germany) is one of the most important European initiatic schools of the 18th century, with rituals of operative alchemy and a nine-degree architecture. UR-KRUR is — in the wiki cluster map — the 20th-century Italian reformulation of the same science that the Golden Rosicrucians transmitted in 18th-century Germany. The «rose» of the Rosicrucians is the same rose that Pietro Negri-Reghini identifies in the Fedeli d'Amore (UR 1928, n. 2) — emblem of Divine Wisdom, symbol of the accomplished one, flower of the alchemical Rubedo. The three hermetic colors green-white-red of the Knights of the Sacred Delta (one of the Rosicrucian degrees) are the same that the Occult Morphology of KRUR identifies in the three bodily systems of the initiate. Reghini studied in the laboratory the «Italian Alchemical Lead Codex» (UR 1927) of 17th-century Rosicrucian matrix and recognized its operative substance.

With respect to European magnetism

The animal magnetism of Mesmer and his disciples — Puységur, Du Potet, Cahagnet, Donato, Regazzoni — is explicitly recognized by Evola in UR as the secular and therapeutic version of the same fluidic science of alchemy (cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XII.2). The mesmeric «vital fluid» is the Mercury of the alchemists; the magnetic «rapport» between magnetizer and somnambulist is the operative structure of the two-vessel operations described by Abraxa (UR 1927). The authentic magnetists of the European tradition are included among the «sons of Hermes» in the category of KRUR 1929 (cfr. Alchimia e Magnetismo sec. XV.7). UR-KRUR is therefore the explicit initiatic doctrine of what 19th-century European magnetism practiced in a therapeutic-scientific language.

With respect to Dante and the Fedeli d'Amore

UR-KRUR represents the point where the Dantean tradition — re-emerged with the works of Foscolo, Rossetti, Pascoli, Valli — is recognized as the same initiatic tradition of the Group. The essay by Pietro Negri-Reghini «The Secret Language of the Fedeli d'Amore» (UR 1928 n. 2) is the fundamental historical hinge that connects:

the Dantean confraternity (13th-14th cent.)
the German Golden Rosicrucians (17th cent.)
the Principes de Mercy / Knights of the Sacred Delta (18th cent.)
the same Hermetic tradition of the Group (20th cent.)

The «Lady» of Dante (Beatrice) — clothed in the three hermetic colors green-white-red (Purgatory XXX) — is the same figure of Divine Wisdom that the Rosicrucians call «rose», that the Tantrics call śakti, that the Sufis call Layla or Sophia. It is the doctrine of the Woman-Initiate (cfr. Cecco d'Ascoli) that the two-vessel operations of Abraxa actualize in operative form.

With respect to the chivalric tradition and Giudicelli

The initiatic chivalric tradition (Templars, medieval chivalric orders, 18th-century Strict Templar Observance, Willermoz's CBCS) has maintained through the centuries the doctrine of the «chivalric accomplished one» that Giudicelli reformulated in the Corps Immortel (1988). UR-KRUR of 1927 anticipates many of Giudicelli's themes of 1988: the «one and triple body of the Lord of the Three worlds» of EA (UR 1927, cfr. La Doctrine du Corps Immortel sec. III-bis) is the immortal body of Giudicelli. The convergence is not due to direct influence (Giudicelli does not seem to have read UR) but to a common European traditional source — it is the same science, re-emerged twice in the 20th century in different languages.

X. Living practice in the School

Declared section: living practice of the Paret School (ISI-CNV).

In the School, UR/KRUR is advanced study material for students who have completed the propaedeutics:

The practical essays of the three volumes (Instruction for the knowledge of the Breath, The Chains, Animation of the Centers, etc.) are operative references for comparison: one studies how Evola, Reghini and their Italian collaborators described the same exercises that the School teaches
The documented experiences (Sub specie interioritatis by Reghini, chain experiences, Crown of Light) are testimonies of real 20th-century Italian work — read as confirmations that what the School teaches actually works, and that it has been experimented with also in a broader environment
The principle of pseudonyms is active in the School's tradition: the student who publishes esoteric texts often does so under an initiatic name, according to the practice that UR/KRUR consolidated in Italy
The warning about the difference between the dry path (Evola-Reghini, Doric) and the wet path (Kremmerz, Isiac) is accepted as a diagnostic grid: the master recognizes, for each disciple, which path is naturally theirs and proposes it
The model of the group as a laboratory — not only as a hierarchical master-student transmission — is an integral part of the School's didactics: some advanced works are practiced in small groups that function along the lines of UR, with periodic meetings, agreed-upon exercises, and re-discussion of experiences

Documentation status

Statement	Status	Source
UR (year I 1927, year II 1928) and KRUR (year III 1929) as a restricted monthly journal	✅ VERIFIED	original volumes — UR 1927 / UR 1928 / KRUR 1929
Subtitle: Journal of Directions for a Science of the Self	✅ VERIFIED	volume covers — Drive
Group pseudonyms (Leo=Evola, Pietro Negri/Tikaipòs=Reghini, Iagla, Abraxa, Luce, Arvo, etc.)	✅ VERIFIED	indices and article signatures — Drive
Four-part editorial structure: Doctrine / Practice / Experiences / Criticism	✅ VERIFIED	indices of the three volumes — Drive
Practical essays of year I (1927) on Chains, Breath, Hermetic Caduceus, Ceremonial Magic	✅ VERIFIED	UR 1927 index — Drive
Pythagoras — The Golden Verses translated by Tikaipòs (Reghini) in UR 1928	✅ VERIFIED	UR