by Frank Gelli
‘I would not be surprised if such attack took place one day. The point of that would not be anything “physical”. The Kaaba is not strategically significant, naturally. An oil well is immensely more important, from the strictly material point of view. The meaning of such an outrage would be metaphysical. The sacred, its symbols and emblems, have always aroused the deep malevolence of the destructive forces at work to undermine transcendence. Remember, the word ‘terrorism’ originates with the French revolutionaries in 1793. The gang of “liberty, equality, fraternity” fame. Not content with cutting off the heads of countless aristocratic and innocent people, they determined to pollute the holy emblems of France’s ancient faith. So Demoiselle Candelle, a rouged dancer of the Paris Opera – a harlot – was carried with all honours in mock procession to the medieval Cathedral of Notre Dame. The church in the heart of Paris dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The exultant mob then placed the girl on the high altar of the profaned church and proceeded to worship her as a goddess. Yes, la Deesse Raison, the goddess reason. Do you see the revolutionaries’ intent? It was a highly symbolic act. The deification of human reason over the ruins of revealed religion. The irony of it all may have escaped the mob, I suspect. Reason, the thing they worshipped was a whore! Would they have wanted their mothers, wives and sisters to be like Demoiselle Candelle? I think not...’
‘The lesson is clear. The great rebellions that have shaped Western modernity have at bottom been revolts against transcendence. Against the very ground of man’s being. To see them only in terms of demands for rights, social justice etcetera is utterly wrong-headed. A merely ‘horizontal’, flat and one-eyed understanding of human history. What the puppet masters were attacking was infinitely higher than that. Unless you introduce a vertical perspective, what is higher, you will not grasp what the true meaning of subversion . Whoever attacked the Kaaba would not be just any crazy criminal. They might be so described in the media but, in reality, they would be linked with a red, bloody thread of mischief to the same forces that led the attack on the church of Notre Dame two centuries ago...’
Years later, Evola being by then in eternity, his words came almost true. 1979 was the start of Islam’s fifteenth century. The news shocked Muslims all over the world: 400 armed men stormed and took over the Great Mosque in Mecca. They were not foreign infidels, Christians or atheists, but Arab, Saudi men, zealots for their religion. Ikhwan, brothers, was the name they had given themselves. The poet Juhaiman was their leader. A charismatic figure, learned and brave. Juhaiman proclaimed that his young brother in law, Muhammad, was the awaited Mahdi, the redeemer of Islam. The saviour who comes at the world’s end to wipe out impiety and to restore true religion and justice. Unfortunately that putative Mahdi failed the ultimate Mahdist test: victory. The Saudi ruler, King Khalid, did not trust his own forces to put down the revolt so he resorted to Pakistani troops and, horror of horrors, kuffar, infidels. French special anti-terrorist forces were brought in to flush out the Ikhwan from inside the shrine. A bloody job. Hundreds perished in the battle, including Muhammad, the man who would be Mahdi. Juhaiman and other prisoners were captured alive. Later, they were beheaded in the public squares of Saudi cities, pour decourager les autres.
The Saudi monarchy claimed the uprising was the work of Kharijis, fanatical dissenters from orthodox Islam. The leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, for his part accused Israelis and Americans of seeking to grab and defile the Kaaba. Be that as it may, the plot goes on. Not long ago the Kavkaz Agency in Chechnia carried a warning about a conspiracy to blow up the Kaaba. They hinted at some not so ‘occult’ forces aiming at the destabilising of the Middle East and the eventual ruin of the whole Islamic umma. Well-founded or fantastic stuff? Conspiracy mongers are tiresome. Yet, the Baron had a point. The real plots have a metaphysical import. To grasp their meaning, you have to dig deeper.
ECCLESIA DIABOLI
A tale by the writer Leo Tolstoy struck him as both amusing and perceptive. ‘It is about the Christian Church. Of course, churchmen swear that she is of divine origin. But Tolstoy writes of a diabolical plot. A thesis advanced, quite seriously, in “The Restoration of Hell”. A devil confides in Beelzebub, the prince of demons. The claim is that Christ had initially triumphed over the kingdom of darkness but then Satan had a stroke of genius. Any attempt to fight back openly would have been doomed. Human beings had been too thoroughly seduced by Christ’s unbearable message of brotherly love for a revanche to be possible. A more subtle, demonic strategy was needed. The devil invented the Church. To make Christians believe they are following Christ, whereas they are actually following devils. So Christ’s victory is overthrown, and Satan’s rule restored, without anyone even realising it.’
‘The tale illustrates Tolstoy’s singular views on Christianity. The Churches are anti-Christian bodies. They do not have Jesus of Nazareth as their founder. They stand squarely against the authentic teachings of Christ. Tolstoy felt that the Sermon on the Mount represented Christ’s core, genuine teaching, one the Church had marginalised and betrayed. This diabolical Christianity affirms only pride, greed, violence, necrophilia and death, according to him. The Church is the betrayer of Christ and a complete travesty of his message. She is truly the devil’s spawn.’
‘Well, you can’t be surprised that the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated Tolstoy. Besides, he also denied the Trinity, Christ’s divinity, the sacraments and the apostolic succession...The Orthodox Church at first after his death tried to prevent his being buried in consecrated ground...She had a point, I suppose...But Tolstoy’s take on Christianity was very one-sided and sentimental. His repudiation of all private property, the State and all types of war do not even square with the New Testament...Jesus never told soldiers to stop soldiering. And did he not tell his disciples to go and buy swords? And, when struck by the servant of the High Priest, he demanded justice. That implies a belief in a juristic framework, does it not? As to St Paul, he was a proud Roman citizen and sought the protection of Roman justice from his fellow Jews. It is a fact.’
‘Still, I find this literary conceit stimulating. If the devil really was the creator of the Church, much in history would make sense...Take Vatican II. Difficult not see the devil’s paw in it, don’t you think? All done at the instigation of John XXIII. The so-called Papa Buono, the good Pope. Strange compliment. Because it suggests that other Popes might not be so good...What I mean is that it would be real diabolical cunning to use a seemingly benign Pontiff to bring about something deeply destructive. (Roger Peyrefitte actually reports a gossip according to which Pope John had a dark side but you can’t believe everything bitchy Roger says...) Like the Council’s revisionist line on certain matters, for example... And the dismantling of what little was left in the Catholic Church of ascetic and traditional practices...Restoration of hell indeed!’
NIETZSCHE
He had a few objections to make to that fine passage in Nietzsche’s Morgenroete, in which the philosopher damns the importance given in our culture to the love story. Nietzsche thought it was a reaction to Christian teaching on sex. Christianity had made great and ideal forces like Eros and Aphrodite into wicked spirits. Because of that, of demonising “normal and necessary human drives” had caused untold and unnecessary anguish and misery to human beings, the German thinker maintains. The love story supposedly developed in reaction to all that.
‘Nietzsche was trying to say that whereas there is an injunction framed as “You shall not”, human nature is such that it immediately triggers the rejoinder “And what if I do?” Besides, any prohibition implies an existing inclination towards the thing prohibited, otherwise what would be the point of prohibiting it? You don’t need laws forbidding the eating of dirt or the tearing out of your own eyes, because people generally display no such inclinations. I think there is an aphorism of Lichtenberg, “If the drinking of water had been declared a sin by the Church, what a pleasure would there be in drinking it!” The titillations of the forbidde
n fruit go back to the garden of Eden...But, yes, the Church has banged on about sexual sins too much. By doing that, she has invested them with a disproportionate importance, given them an extra thrill...Dante makes no such a mistake...The gravest sins for him are not sexual at all.’
‘As a classical philologist, Nietzsche knew that a negative attitude to Eros predates Christianity. Plato in the Symposium distinguishes between a vulgar and a heavenly Aphrodite or love...The former lusts after the body, the latter longs for union with a soul...a critique of a certain type of erotic love existed in paganism, too.’
‘Moreover, the early Christians rejected not just Eros but Mars. It is a fact that they had strong pacifist leanings. Christian writers condemned bloodshed, warfare and gladiatorial combats. But not many would argue that war had an added attraction because of Christian teachings, I mean, in reaction to them. By contrast, look at the way the Israelis have beaten the Arabs, how warlike the Jews have become today. You could say Mars seems to have become an unofficial divinity in Tel Aviv. But you could never put that down to the doctrines of the synagogue, could you? Judaism is not pacifistic. You would have to rewrite almost all of the Old Testament to show that!’
‘Nietzsche, I believe, had an abnormally low Eros. It is probable he remained a lifelong virgin. His infatuation for that very peculiar female, Lou Von Salome, was only platonic. He did propose marriage once and was turned down. I wonder if his dislike of romance was as simple as that – sour grapes. About a “happiness” he could never attain. If so, it would only be human, all too human.’ The Baron put that in German: menschliches, allzumenshliches
.
HEROSTRATUS
Evola liked my suggestion that the motive behind the assassination of President John Kennedy might be either higher or lower than is generally believed. Darker than mere politics, in actual fact. ‘Yes, you are right. Horizontal explanations are banal, tedious. Vertical ones, even if hyperbolical, are more interesting. In Kennedy’s case, that means, for example, looking for what you might would call the Herostratus factor.’
‘Herostratus is a name forever synonymous with infamy. He was a Greek youth, a citizen of the ancient city of Ephesus, in Asia Minor. In the year 356 BC, on the same night in which Alexander the Great was born, Herostratus set fire to the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It had taken more than hundred years to build it. A few hours sufficed to turn it into a smouldering heap. The boy did a good job. But why did he do it?’
‘The answer is still disputed. The ancients supposed Herostratus to have acted out of despair. Acutely aware of his ordinariness, he could not bear being a mere nobody. At all costs he wanted to be known. Become a celebrity. Fame is what he desired above all. Eternal infamy is what he got in the end. But the idea is that is the price he was willing to pay. Today all Herodotus would have to do is to get himself on television. Far less dramatic but equally effective!’
‘Sartre proposed a different hypothesis. In Intimacy, a mediocre collection of short stories I once forced myself to read, he construed Herostratus as a sort of mixed-up, criminal existentialist. An interpretation not compatible with the previous one. Craving fame, never mind what the cost, is not irrational, because fame is one of the things men desire. Fame is a good. But shooting people at random in the streets, as Sartre’s hero does, for no reason at all, is arguably absurd. That is what would render the action “existentialist”. An exercise in radical freedom, according to Sartre. But I prefer to consider Herostratus as a proto-surrealist. Auguste Breton, the founder of surrealism, did indeed say that random shooting of people would be a model existentialist deed...’
I told him that I had first met Herostratus’ name in Lenin’s writings. He gave a frigid smile: ‘Yes, Lenin had a rather conventional bourgeois education. Steeped in the classics. His works are peppered with Greek and Roman allusions. Well, at least back then revolutionaries were well-educated! More than you can say for their likes today. Lenin was fond of comparing Marxists he disagreed with to Herostratus. Infamous renegades, traitors to socialism. He meant that. But I imagine that Lenin had a sneaking admiration for Herostratus. The sacrilegious act of temple burning – an assault on transcendence – would have aroused Lenin’s admiration, I am sure.’
‘Herostratus may have hated Artemis for another reason. Don’t make the mistake of confusing the Ephesian female goddess with Diana, the virgin huntress of the Greek-Roman pantheon. Artemis’ black statue portrayed a fierce, Asiatic fertility mother. Her breasts, hard and thrusting, were adorned with rows of bulls’ testicles. A psychoanalyst might opine that perhaps Herostratus suffered from a castration complex...Well, something like that!’
‘If Herostratus was haunted by his own obscurity, I expect he would have first tried less atrocious ways of overcoming it. Did he perhaps have a go at becoming a philosopher? That was one of the highest callings in ancient Greece. Ephesus gave birth to Heraclitus, did it not? But Herostratus must have realised that way was precluded to him – he did not have the head for that. Politics? In that too he must have failed. I suspect Herostratus came to doubt even his own existence. (Today desperate nonentities might conclude: “I am not on TV: therefore I don’t exist.”) Like Dr Freud inscribed as his a motto for Die Traumdeutung, the Interpretation of Dreams, he would have gritted his teeth and determined: “If I cannot conquer Heaven, I shall subvert Hell.” Here Evola paused. One of his long, pregnant pauses. Kind of Pinteresque. ‘Or maybe Herostratus had a deeper reason for acting the way he did. A reason so deep, so disconcerting that ordinary intellects are not able to fathom it. That would be part of his game. To bewilder mediocre minds, so that only superior ones, the elect, would be worthy to intuit, to grasp the truth, the secret. Not a truth intelligible or acceptable to the many, of course. That would be part of Herostratus’ aim, his strategy...’
In recalling his words I feel somewhat dissatisfied. I cannot convey his tone of voice but, just the same, there was in what he said some kind of allusion, a hint, a coded revelation directed at me. It was like the piece of a puzzle, a jigsaw. Herostratus, infamy, the higher reached through the lower...Could it be that Evola wanting to draw a parallel? A comparison between himself, his life, his work, and Herostratus? Just as the Greek youth’s motives have escaped, and keep eluding, the shallow-minded, so does the mystery behind Evola’s life?’
Could it be that his neo-paganism, anti-Semitism, his racism, his contempt for equality and democracy, his black magician’s halo – were they part of a profound, unconventional Herostratean strategy? Could it really be like that? The game, was it the malamatiya game? Infamy, shame and blame, deliberately sought. The meaning of Evola’s life – a self-crucified, heretical Sufi martyr, was that it?
RING OF UNTRUTH
He had once discussed the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing with some high-ranking Third Reich official in Berlin. What had disgusted him was to find the man praising that author’s famous, didactic and dubious story, Nathan the Wise: ‘It showed me how men who should have known better were polluted with subversive notions. Lessing masquerades his tale as a parable of tolerance but it is far from it. Ostensibly enlightened – yes, for the naive and the gullible. It is full of hatred and prejudice, in fact...’
I had never heard of Lessing. Evola said I should go, read it and then tell him what I thought. Obediently, I went with Maria to a Library in Via del Corso, dug out the book and had a quick read. Nathan the Wise has a cast of characters. A wise Jew, Nathan, Sultan Saladin, a crusader, females... So I went back to Evola and told him I had done my homework. ‘Now go and read Boccaccio’, he said. ‘There is a story in The Decameron quite similar to Lessing’s.’ So, again, I did Evola’s bidding. Boccaccio’s story is quite short and simple. It is about prudence. The purpose of the protagonist, the wise Jew Melchizedek, is to frustrate Sultan Saladin’s desire to force him to lend him money. Saladin demands Melchizedek: “Which of the three major, monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam -
is the true one?” Melchizedek, being no fool, perceives a trap. So he responds by telling the Sultan a story. About a great and wealthy man who owns a most precious and valuable ring. On his death, he leaves it to one of his sons, thereupon to be considered the heir and the head of the family. Then the son passes it on to one of his own sons and so on, for several generations. Until the ring gets into the hands of a father who has three sons. The happy problem is that he loves them all equally. All are equally dear. Naturally, he cannot make up his mind which son deserves the ring, as they are all equally worthy. What is to be done? Well, Melchizedek is a shrewed fellow. He summons a jeweller and has him make two rings, so beautiful and splendid that it is impossible to tell them from the original, true one. Next the father calls each son separately and gives a ring to each. After his death, obviously each son produces the ring, claiming to be the heir. However, Boccaccio tells us, “Each ring was so like the others that there was no way of deciding, of finding the answer to the question. So the matter of the true ring could not be solved.” Saladin gets the message. Melchizedek’s cleverness had trumped him. Which of the three religions is true is a matter that cannot be decided. Oh, yes, in the end Saladin still borrows money from the good Jew – but he pays it back ok! Happy financial ending.