Metaphysics of War

Battle, victory, and death in the world of tradition.

These essays, originally written by Evola during the 1930s and '40s, deal with war from a spiritual and heroic perspective. Evola selects specific examples from the Nordic, Vedic, Roman, Persian, Islamic, and other traditions to demonstrate how traditionalists can prepare themselves to experience war in a way that:

• Allows them to overcome the limited possibilities offered by our materialistic and degraded age.
• Enables them to transcend the Age of Kali and enter the world of heroism.
• Leads to achieving a higher state of consciousness, which Evola depicts as an effective realization of the ultimate purpose of life.

His call to action, however, is not aligned with today’s armies, which ask nothing more of their soldiers than to become mercenaries in the temporary employ of a decadent class. Still less is it a call to misdirected or nihilistic violence.

Instead, Evola presents the warrior as one who lives an integrated and purposeful way of life – one who adopts a specifically Aryan view of the world, where:

• The political aims of a war are not its ultimate justification.
• War is seen as merely a means for the warrior to find his calling to a higher and more complete form of existence.
• This existence goes beyond the political and aligns with the teachings of the great spiritual texts.

More importantly, Evola emphasizes how the ideal of the warrior extends beyond the battlefield into other aspects of traditional living, even in times of peace.