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East & West collects eighteen essays and reviews in East-West comparative philosophy and religion written by Julius Evola for the journal East & West. Evola covers an astonishing array of traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Tantrism, Yoga, Vedanta, Taoism, Stoicism, and Existentialism; such thinkers as René Guénon, Ernst Jünger, Mircea Eliade, Sri Aurobindo, Meister Eckhart, F. W. J. Schelling, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and C. G. Jung; and such topics as suicide, psychology, sexual magic, and the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead. Evola's goal is not simply to identify superficial doctrinal parallels between Eastern and Western traditions, but to use these comparisons to uncover their common root, the one Tradition that underlies the many traditions, which is the central focus of his work.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Julius Evola (1898-1974) has been one of the most misunderstood and controversial authors of the Twentieth century. Born in Rome, Evola began his pursuit of truth as a Dadaist painter and an Idealist philosopher, but quickly lost his taste for modernism and moved on to metaphysics, religion, and the occult. Encountering the work of René Guénon, who became a lifelong friend, Evola embraced his concept of the Primordial Tradition and his critique of the modern world. Believing that Tradition was an idea which should encompass the social as well as the spiritual world, Evola saw some hope for a remedy to the ills of modernity in Italian Fascism, although he never joined the Party, and his writings on the subject were frequently critical of its reality. After 1945, Evola remained aloof from politics, and attempted to define the most effective stance for an inhabitant of the modern age to adopt while still retaining something of traditional wisdom. In recent years, Evola's ideas have given rise to a new breed of spiritual seekers and anti-modernists.
