Cavalcare la Tigre di Evola/en
| 📚 Fonte primaria: opere di Julius Evola (1898-1974) |
| Questa pagina deriva dalle opere di Julius Evola (1898-1974) — filosofo, esoterista, pittore italiano della scuola tradizionalista, direttore del Gruppo di UR-KRUR (1927-1929), autore di una vasta opera che integra magia operativa, alchimia ermetica, tradizione orientale (Yoga, Tantra, Buddhismo), critica della modernità e politica. Per il Paret Method e la Scuola ISI-CNV, Evola è un riferimento cardinale per la dimensione iniziatica e tradizionale del magnetismo ermetico.
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Opere chiave di Evola (riferimento):
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Ride the Tiger. Existential Orientations for an Age of Dissolution is the book published by Julius Evola in 1961 (Scheiwiller, Milan), considered the most realist and the most pessimistic among all his writings (as Evola himself defines it in The Path of Cinnabar, 1963). It is Evola's most misunderstood book — interpreted variously as an invitation to revolt (far-right reading) or as a disenchanted withdrawal (existentialist left reading). For the wiki it is significant because it formulates the existential position of the man of Tradition in the contemporary world, a formulation that the School accepts in some elements (self-awareness of the age, inner discipline, care in life choices) and rejects in others (political drifts, misanthropic closure, ideological anti-modernism).
I. Position in the Evolian quadrilogy
Ride the Tiger ideally closes Evola's metaphysical-traditional quadrilogy:
- The Hermetic Tradition (1931) — the doctrine operative-alchemical
- Il Mistero del Graal di Evola (1937) — the history of tradition in the chivalric world
- Lo Yoga della Potenza di Evola (1949) — the practice tantric-oriental
- Ride the Tiger (1961) — the existence of the man of Tradition in the world of dissolution
If the first three books describe Tradition in its doctrines, history and practice, Ride the Tiger describes what the man of Tradition concretely does when he lives in a world where Tradition no longer exists. It is the existential phenomenology of the contemporary traditionalist condition.
II. The title-metaphor: «riding the tiger»
[VERIFIED] The title derives from a tantric-oriental metaphor that Evola takes up: when a tiger attacks, and one can neither flee nor kill it, the only way is to leap onto its back and ride it — because as long as one is on its back, the tiger cannot turn around to devour the rider. Applied to the contemporary age: the man of Tradition cannot flee the modern world (it is everywhere), cannot fight it head-on (it is too strong), the only way is to ride it — actively enter its processes of dissolution, go through them, survive their exhaustion.
The logic is that which Evola himself formulates in the text: to the destructive processes of the modern one does not oppose conservative resistance (which is losing because it defends things already dead), but one goes beyond, through dissolution itself, towards a point where what was essential rises again from the ruin of what was contingent. It is the nigredo applied to the historical age — the black work of civilization.
III. The diagnosis of the «completed Kali Yuga»
[VERIFIED] The book opens (part I ORIENTATIONS) with two chapters that establish the diagnosis:
- Ch. 1: Modern world and men of Tradition — the modern world is the Fourth Age (Kali Yuga) of the Hindu tradition; the man of Tradition survives in it as a stranger
- Ch. 2: End of a cycle. «Riding the tiger» — the cycle closes, and the way to face it is not nostalgia but riding the tiger
Part II — IN THE WORLD WHERE GOD IS DEAD (Nietzschean title) — articulates the diagnosis of European nihilism:
- Ch. 3: European nihilism. Dissolution of morality
- Ch. 4: From the precursors to the "burned-out youth" and "protest" (Evola writes in 1961, already sees the precursors of 1968)
- Ch. 5: Cover-ups of European nihilism. The economic-social myth and protest
- Ch. 6: Active nihilism. Nietzsche
- Ch. 7: Being oneself
- Ch. 8: The dimension of transcendence. "Life" and "more than life"
- Ch. 9: Beyond theism and atheism
- Ch. 10: Invulnerability. Apollo and Dionysus
- Ch. 11: Action without desire. The causal law
IV. The critique of existentialism
[VERIFIED] Part III — THE DEAD END OF EXISTENTIALISM — discusses the position of contemporary existentialist philosophers:
- Ch. 12: Being and inauthentic existence
- Ch. 13: Sartre: the prison without walls
- Ch. 14: Existence, "a project thrown into the world"
- Ch. 15: Heidegger: flight forward and "being-towards-death". Collapse of existentialism
Evola acknowledges Sartre and Heidegger a partial diagnosis of nihilism, but criticizes them because they remain within nihilism instead of going beyond it. Sartre makes anguish a perpetual condition («the prison without walls»); Heidegger transforms the problem of death into destiny instead of an initiatic opportunity.
The man of Tradition, according to Evola, goes through nihilism as an inner black work — not as a tragic destiny but as a necessary passage towards a new foundation.
V. The dissolution of the individual, knowledge, art
[VERIFIED] The central sections of the book analyze the different planes of contemporary dissolution:
DISSOLUTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL
- Ch. 16: Twofold aspect of anonymity
- Ch. 17: Destructions and liberations in the new realism
- Ch. 18: The "animal ideal". The feeling for nature
DISSOLUTION OF KNOWLEDGE — RELATIVISM
- Ch. 19: The procedures of modern science
- Ch. 20: Covering of nature. "Phenomenology"
THE DOMAIN OF ART — FROM PHYSICAL MUSIC TO THE REGIME OF NARCOTICS
- Ch. 21: The sickness of European culture
- Ch. 22: Dissolution in modern art
- Ch. 23: Modern music and jazz
- Ch. 24: Digression on drugs
VI. Dissolution in the social domain
[VERIFIED] The part on social dissolution is the most politically contested:
- Ch. 25: States and parties. The stateless man — the man of Tradition is stateless because no modern State is a true sacral community
- Ch. 26: Society. The crisis of the feeling of homeland
- Ch. 27: Marriage and family
- Ch. 28: Relations between the sexes
Critical point of the School: Evola in these chapters expresses political positions (anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-egalitarian) and social ones (on marriage, gender roles, family) that reflect a specific traditionalist weltanschauung that the School does not assume integrally. The School recognizes some insights (the critique of consumerism, the crisis of the sense of community) but not the ideological anti-modern conclusion, and maintains an open and dialogical attitude towards contemporary social forms, working within them and not against them.
VII. The final spiritual problem
[VERIFIED] The final part of the book addresses the great themes:
- Ch. 29: The second religiosity — the critique of new religiosities (oriental syncretisms, new age in nuce, esoteric fashions) that Evola sees as surrogates of the lost Tradition
- Ch. 30: Death. The right over life — the concluding reflection on death as an opportunity for those who have worked and as a defeat for those who have not worked
The final orientation of the book is sober and disenchanted — the man of Tradition does not await restorations, does not seek mass conversions, works silently for himself and for the few who can understand him, going through the age without being devoured by it nor pretending to save it.
VIII. Reception: misunderstandings and controversies
[VERIFIED] The introduction by Gianfranco de Turris (curator of the Mediterranee edition) is titled: Bad masters, bad disciples, bad exegetes. It documents how the book has been profoundly misunderstood:
- Far-right reading: interpretation of «riding the tiger» as a call to armed revolt — an interpretation that Evola himself explicitly rejected («apply oneself to the purely individual problem», Path of Cinnabar)
- Left-wing reading: interpretation as a radical critique of industrial capitalism (Adriano Romualdi, some exponents of the New Left) that valued the nihilistic diagnosis while ignoring the traditionalist framework
- Media reading: reduction to the slogan «ride the tiger» detached from the book's content, used as a label for protest poses
[VERIFIED] The introduction by Stefano Zecchi (academic philosopher) is titled: Evola, or a philosophy of responsibility against nihilism. Zecchi proposes a philosophical-academic reading of Evola as an author who — beyond political positions — has formulated a serious critique of nihilism comparable to Heidegger, Jünger, Klages, and who deserves to be read within the history of philosophy not only within the history of esotericism.
IX. Convergences and tensions with the wiki cluster
Convergence: the diagnosis of the «age of dissolution»
The Evolian diagnosis of the completed Kali Yuga is convergent with the Kremmerzian one of the spiritual crisis of the West (cf. Avviamento alla Magia secondo G. Kremmerz, 1929 text treated in Il Gruppo di UR-KRUR) and with that of René Guénon (The Crisis of the Modern World 1927, The Reign of Quantity 1945). The three authors — Kremmerz, Guénon, Evola — converge on the historical diagnosis.
Convergence: the idea of the «differentiated man»
The «differentiated man» of Ride the Tiger — one who lives in the world without being of the world, who maintains an inner quality in an age of leveling — is convergent with the traditional figure of the initiate (which the School and the entire Kremmerzian tradition recognize). The difference: Evola uses philosophical-traditionalist lexicon, the School uses Kremmerzian-initiatic lexicon, but the referent is the same.
Tension: the political dimension
Central point of tension: Ride the Tiger includes explicit political positions (anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, anti-modern) that the School does not assume. The School recognizes in Evola a great thinker of Tradition but separates the doctrinal-initiatic plane (recognized as authoritative) from the political-ideological plane (left to the individual conscience of each reader, but not integrated into the School's teaching). The principle is the same applied to Il Mistero del Graal di Evola sec. IX.
Tension: misanthropic closure
Critical point: the dimension of closure and disenchantment of Ride the Tiger — the stateless man, the separated man, one who no longer expects — can degenerate into misanthropy and renunciation of civic engagement if misinterpreted. The Paret-ISI-CNV School instead has an active and formative vocation (teaching, therapy, communication, professional development) that works within society with real people — it does not withdraw into the tower of «differentiation». Ours is a tradition that operates.
X. Living practice in the School
Declared section: living practice of the Paret School (ISI-CNV).
- Ride the Tiger is recommended to intermediate-level students as formative reading — not as an operational manual (practice is done elsewhere) but as a reading that clarifies the historical condition in which we move. It is good that the candidate has self-awareness of living in a phase of dissolution and of working consciously in that context
- The title-metaphor is didactic lexicon: students are taught that one must not fight the contemporary world (head-on one does not win), nor flee it (it is everywhere), but ride it — actively enter its processes and go through them bringing a different quality
- Self-awareness of the age (the idea that we live in a specific historical moment, with specific characteristics, and that our practice must be aware of it) is an integral part of the School's training. One does not work in a vacuum: one works within a history, and one must know that history
- The distinction between the doctrinal-initiatic dimension and the political dimension is declared and taught to students: Evola is studied for his operational-symbolic contribution, not for his political positions (which each person evaluates as a citizen, but which do not enter the School's teaching). The same principle as Il Mistero del Graal di Evola sec. IX
- The critique of the "second religiosity" (new age syncretisms, commercial esotericisms, initiatic fashions) is a constant diagnostic of the School — one learns to recognize and distinguish authentic tradition from its simulacra, a principle already documented in Athanasius Kircher e lAlchimia sec. IV (hermetic philosophers vs charcoal burners)
Documentation status
| Statement | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ride the Tiger. Existential Orientations for an Age of Dissolution Scheiwiller 1961 by Julius Evola | ✅ VERIFIED | canonical edition |
| Mediterranee edition 1971 with introductions by Stefano Zecchi and Gianfranco de Turris | ✅ VERIFIED | OCR Drive ISI-CNV |
| Evola himself defines Ride the Tiger «the most realist and most pessimistic book» in The Path of Cinnabar 1963 | ✅ VERIFIED | The Path of Cinnabar cited in Mediterranee preface |
| Structure of the book: 30 chapters in 8 sections (Orientations, World where God is dead, Dead end of existentialism, Dissolution of the individual, Dissolution of knowledge, Domain of art, Social dissolution, Spiritual problem) | ✅ VERIFIED | index of the text — Drive |
| Explicit critique of Sartre («prison without walls») and Heidegger («flight forward, being-towards-death») | ✅ VERIFIED | Ride the Tiger ch. 12-15 — Drive |
| Critique of modern music, jazz, drugs, phenomenology, modern science, modern art, protest, burned-out youth | ✅ VERIFIED | chs. 19-24 — Drive |
| Political-social positions on State, parties, stateless man, feeling of homeland, marriage, family, sexes | ✅ VERIFIED | chs. 25-28 — Drive |
| «Second religiosity» as critique of oriental-new age syncretisms | ✅ VERIFIED | ch. 29 — Drive |
| Reception 1968-1973: about a dozen reprints of Evolian books both on the right and left; protest reading | ✅ VERIFIED | biography ed. Mediterranee — Drive |
Sources
- Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger, ed. Mediterranee, with introductions by Stefano Zecchi and Gianfranco de Turris — Drive ISI-CNV — [VERIFIED] — main source, complete Italian text with editorial apparatus
- Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger, Scheiwiller, Milan, 1961 — [primary source, original edition]
- Julius Evola, The Path of Cinnabar (autobiography through his own books), Scheiwiller 1963, ed. Mediterranee — [primary source, author's self-commentary]
- Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins, Volpe, Rome, 1953 — [contemporary source, considered complementary to Ride the Tiger]
- Julius Evola, The Metaphysics of Sex, Atanòr, Rome, 1958 — [contemporary source, completes the reflection on the sexes]
- Stefano Zecchi, preface Evola, or a philosophy of responsibility against nihilism — [academic secondary source]
- Gianfranco de Turris, Bad masters, bad disciples, bad exegetes — [secondary source on reception]
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882) — [for the «God is dead»]
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943); Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927) — [Evola's philosophical interlocutors]
See also
- Evola e Reghini e la Tradizione Ermetica
- Il Mistero del Graal di Evola
- Lo Yoga della Potenza di Evola
- Il Gruppo di UR-KRUR
- I Fedeli d'Amore
- Kremmerz e Ordine Osirideo Egizio
- Athanasius Kircher e l'Alchimia
- Arcana Arcanorum
- Il Lavoro sui Quattro Corpi dell'Uomo
- La Doctrine du Corps Immortel
- La Tradizione prima delle Filiazioni
- La Tradizione Ermetica nella Massoneria
- Portale della Tradizione Ermetica