The Inversion of Ghibellinism

In the so-called sect of Bavaria's Illuminati we find a typical example of the overturning of tendencies that I have previously described. This can be seen in the change of meaning undergone by the term Enlightenment. Originally the term referred to suprarational, spiritual illumination; slowly but inexorably, it became synonymous with rationalism, with the theory of "natural light," and with antitradition. We may speak, in regard to it, of a counterfeited subversive use of the right belonging to the initiate alone. The initiate, if truly such, may regard himself to be above the contingent historical forms of a particular tradition; denounce its limitations (if he received the mandate to do so) and place himself above their authority; reject dogmas, because he possesses something higher, namely, a transcendent knowledge that he regards as the ultimate authority; and finally claim for himself the dignity of a free being, because he has freed himself from the bonds of the merely human, inferior nature. To this effect the "free ones" constitute a community of equals, which may be regarded as a true confraternity.

Therefore, if we materialize, secularize, and democratize these aspects of the initiatory right and translate them into individualistic terms, what we have are the fundamental principles of the modern subversive and revolutionary ideologies. The light of mere human reason replaces the illumination, giving rise to the havoc brought about by "free inquiry" and secular criticism. The supernatural is banned or confused with nature. Freedom and equality are illegitimately claimed by the individual who is "conscious of his dignity" (though he is not conscious of being enslaved to his empirical self) and who now arises against any form of established authority, vainly setting himself up as his own ultimate reason for being. I say "vainly" because in the inexorable unfolding of the various phases of modern decadence, individualism has been only a short-lived mirage and a misleading intoxication; the collective and irrational element in the age of the masses and of technology has rapidly overcome the emancipated "individual" who is without roots and without traditions.

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...the initiate who knocks down the Temple's columns and steps over the cross, being admitted, after this, to the Mystery of the ascending and descending stairs with seven steps, must swear revenge and ritually actualize this oath by striking with a dagger the Crown and the Tiara, which are the symbols of the traditional double power, namely, of the regal and pontifical authority. All of this properly conveys the meaning of what Freemasonry, as an occult force of global subversion, has precipitated in the modern world, from the preparation for the French Revolution and the establishment of the American democracy to the revolutions of 1848, World War I, the Turkish revolution, the Spanish revolution, and other analogous events. While in the cycle of the Grail the initiatory realization was conceived in such a way as to be connected with the goal of resurrecting the king, in the abovementioned ritual we have exactly the opposite, namely, the counterfeit of an initiation that is tied to the oath (sometimes expressed with the formula "Victory or Death!) of striking or overturning any authority from above.

In any event, the reason behind these consideratins is to indicate the point where the "legacy of the Grail" and of analogous initiatory traditions stops and where, with the exception of the survival of a few surviving names and symbols, we can no longer detect any legitimate filiation from them. In the specific case of modern Freemasonry the following factors would make it appear as a typical example of a pseudoinitiatory organization: its confused syncretism; the artificiality of most of its hierarchy's degrees (something that even a layman would notice); and the banality of the moralistic, social, rationalistic, and modern exegesis applied to various borrowed elements that have an authentic esoteric character. And yet, considering the "efficient direction" of that organization in reference to the previously mentioned elements and to its revolutionary activity, one cannot help feeling that he is confronting a force that, on the spiritual plane, acts against the spirit itself: a dark force of antitradition and counterinitiation. In that case it is possible that its rites are more harmful than one may think, and that those who partake of it, without realizing it, establish contact with this force, which cannot be grasped by ordinary consciousness.

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In its essence, Ghibellinism has been nothing less than a form of the reappearance of the sacred and spiritual ideal of the authority befitting a leader of a traditional political organization. Thus it is exactly the opposite of everything that is "secular," and of everything that is political and governmental in the modern, degenerate sense of the word.

One may wonder what is the point of shedding light on this essence of Ghibellinism, the Grail's kingdom, and Templarism, other than to reestablish the truth before the previously mentioned misunderstandings and counterfeits. The answer to this question must remain undetermined. Already in the arena of ideas, the character of the dominating culture is such that most people could not even imagine what the issue at stake is. After all, only a small minority could understand that just as the ascetic-monastic orders played a fundamental role during the material and moral chaos that brought about the collapse of the Roman Empire, likewise an order following in the footsteps of Templarism would have a decisive role in a world such as the modern one, which displays forms of greater dissolution and inner collapse than the previous period. The Grail retains the meaning of a symbol in which the antithesis between "priest" and "warrior" is overcome, but also retains the modern equivalent of this antithesis, that is to say, materialized, telluric, and titanic, or better yet, Luciferian forms of the will to power on the one hand, and the lunar forms of the surviving devotional religion and of confused mystical and neospiritualist impulses toward the supernatural and what is not ordinary.

If we just consider the individual and some people, the symbol always retains an intrinsic value, which is indicative for a given type of inner formation. But to go from this to the notion of an order, of a modern Templarism, and to believe that even if it were to come to be, it would be able to exercise an influence directly and sensibly on the general historical forces that are dominant today - that is hasty. Even the Rosicrucians (the real Rosicrucians), back in the eighteenth century, regarded this attempt as vain. Moreover, even those who have received the "sword" must wait for the right time to wield it, the right moment being only that in which forces, the power of which is still unknown owing to an intrinsic determinism, will encounter a real limit and the cycle will end. The right moment will be that in which, even before the most extreme existential situations, a desperate defense instinct rising from the deepest recesses (I almost said, from the memoire de sangc) will eventually regalvanize and give strength to myths and ideas connected to the legacy of better times. I believe that before this happens, a possible Templarism may play only an inner defensive role, in relation to the task of protecting the symbolic, yet not merely symbolic, "solar stronghold."

This will clarify the ultimate meaning of a serious and committed study of the witnesses and of the motifs of the Templar saga and of higher Ghibellinism. To understand and to live by these motifs means to enter into a dimension of suprahistorical realities and, in this way, to gradually reach the certainty that the invisible and inviolable center, the king who must awake, and the avenging and restorating hero are not mere fancies of a dead and romantic past, but rather the truth of those who, today, alone may legitimately be said to be alive.

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-Julius Evola. The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit. Inner
Traditions. Rochester, Vermont: 1997.

FOLLOWING THE TIGER

When I was weary of toiling

I put on a beggar's clothes,

Borrowed a lute of the tinker,

And garnished my cap with a rose,

Left all the lands behind me

Far as ever I could

And followed the track of the Tiger

Into the thick of the wood.

For the feet of the Tiger pass

Where no man ever has trod.

The lair of the Tiger is blessed.

Its place is the place of God.

The stars turned softly in heaven;

The moon was a horn of dew.

The grasses trembled in music

On paths that the wild things knew.

I walked in the ways of the Tiger, --

I, with a rose and a lute,

But I feared not the fangs of the Tiger

Nor shrank at the white owl's hoot.

For the feet of the Tiger pass

Where evil never has trod.

The ways of the Tiger are blessed.

His home is the home of God.

I heard a sweet bell in the forest

When faint leaves whispered of dark,

Followed, and found in the woodland

A chimney, a smoke, a spark.

And I thought: Is he at the fireside,

Tiger's master and mine,

Warming his feet at the coals,

Nodding over his wine?

For the feet of the Tiger rest

Where harm's foot never has trod.

He has gone in the walks of peace.

His looks are lifted to God.

I knocked, for the door was mute,

And who should be waiting there

But the long-lost Queen of the Faeries,

Braiding her golden hair.

The Faery smiled down from the window

And opened the casement bars.

She loosened her hair in the shadow

And shook out a million stars.

And I thought: Oh, the claws of the Tiger

Are sheathed, and the Peace of God

Rests on this house, and beauty

Walks where the Tiger has trod.

And then was the latchstring lifted.

There were the lovely three, --

God, and the Queen, and the Tiger,

And God's hand welcomed me.

The Tiger slept on the hearthstone.

The Faery gave me her ring.

My rose began to blossom;

My lute began to sing.

It sang how the ways of the Tiger

Led me to beauty and God,

To the door of the hut of the Faery

By paths men never had trod.

-Donald Davidson