Customer Reviews

The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art

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The impressions of Hermeticism that have formed over many years of Jungian interpretations, Theosophical speculations and well-intentioned 20th century academic investigations will have to be looked at anew - and to tell the truth, pretty much discarded by anyone who encounters this book. It's really not an overstatement to say that Evola's work simply trumps other interpretations. His is not so much an 'interpretation' as much as it is a genuine teaching. The product of a pure, direct, and very deep experience of the material, The Hermetic Tradition offers the most lucid overall treatment that this often dizzyingly difficult subject has ever seen. Evola managed to do this somehow without "dumbing it down" for a broad public readership, and in doing so he has rendered us a tremendous and unparalleld service. As SPECIALIZED material, applicable to a SPECIFIC mode of percieving the world and one's place in it, with a SPECIFIC core spiritual discipline at it's heart, the Tradition of Hermeticism has been done justice by this book. Because of that, for some it will not be easy reading - even more difficult will be putting it's teachings to practice. But for those of us who, for all of our familiarity with the 'occult' Hermetic symbols and the 'psychological' operations of alchemy, are still left mainly un-transformed by such understandings, this book is for you. It cannot be recommended highly enough.

Baron Evola, always controversial and provocative, is no less so here. Discussing many facets of the Magnum Opus ( 'Corrosive waters', and 'Path of Venus' for instance) which are overlooked, misunderstood, or just plain ignored by other writers on the subject, this work should be consisered a necessary part of any Hermetic Library. Evola draws extensively from Greek, Latin, Arabic, and English language expositions of the Hermetico-Alchemic Art. The notes are impressive in their relevance and ability to increase the depth of qualitative comprehension. One could wish there had been a more comprehensive index. Be prepared to have cherished assumptions challenged and intellectual horizons broadened. Read with Evola's "Eros and the Mysteries of Love," and "The Mystery of the Grail."

Good Luck!

This book rates three stars, which is still a good, strong recommendation. The truth of the matter is, Evola has taken an extremely difficult and arcane discipline, alchemy, and treated it with a solid explanation of what the royal art is and is about. Not an easy feat. The first half is the theory of the subject, the second half being the practice of the subject. The first half is perhaps more useful to today's reader because the concepts can be applied almost immediately, regardless of spiritual inclination. The text, through rich, and at times highly yet still understandable technical language, brings to light a beautiful spiritual practice that lost steam in the middle ages, for perhaps good reason. The author brings in gnosticism as a natural religious worldview to the art, which compliments the alchemical texts nicely. The beauty of a universe populated with the lesser, sometimes menacing and always changing planets, or the ptolemaic planets, which has control over the soulful and animal nature of man, yet transcended by the upper fixed and unchanging stars in the firmament which guide the spirit, is a universal, perennial philosophy which outs beautifully here. Again, regardless of your religious training and upbringing, this all sounds on the whole like you've heard it before and that you liked it when you did. Evola recalls in us this rich tradition that hopefully has not seen it's last expression, if for no other reason than it's sheer beauty.

"This book demands study." The book itself makes you think, and thus, thinking, arrive at certain truths that, if expressed to yourself openly, and without thinking, would be deprived of meaning or value.

Evola sets up the whole idea of what alchemy is by discussing the univerality of certain myths, using ideas that permeate history and culture, to show that we are all one people; what goes on in one human mind, goes on in all. And by using techniques of the the alchemists we can access a perfected state, which all religions profess to offer.

He goes on to talk of the reality of the actual transmutaion of physical lead into physical gold, but quotes, 'that to make gold, one must first possess it.' The transmution of lead into gold is merely the proof, the act and sign of the alchemist to demostrate that he has transmuted his own being into something greater. It is not the real goal of alchemy.

Evola tells us that the real goal is "palingenises" - rebirth. He is expicit, and provides examples from alchemists, who say that the metals and substances they mention are not the physical or real substances, and anyone who thinks so is decieved. The final goal is something internal.

I wouldn't call alchemy spiritual, because using words as sybmols, we identify with the symbol, and not the actual meaning behind the symbol. To call something spiritual, without any actual experience of what that thing is, is to cut yourself off from the experience with the mere utterance of a word; a concept instead of reality. This book, hopefully, will help you break free from this world of identification with symbols, and reach out and touch another world that is only a heartbeat away. Best of luck. Corey.

First, this is not a beginner book, nor is it a lucid or logical book, to be read and analyzed. This book is designed to provide material for contemplation and transformation of the self. If looking for a more theoretical work, I suggest "Foundations of High Magic" by Denning and Phillips.

Where this book excels is in its goal: Providing material for a seeker to internalize and understand alchemical processes. This is the best book on that subject, hands down.

This is the best book on the subject I have yet come across. I would have to strongly disagree with the last review that stated Evola was writing from a "theosophical society " standpoint. Evola was strongly opposed to the modern "pseudo religion" of theosophy and he also takes issue with Jungs "psychologizing" of alchemy.

Without a slightest doubt this translation is the worst among all existing translations in European languages. French version, for instance, is far from perfect, but it is thousand times better than this book. The English translator non just did a very poor job, but distorted meaning of many statements in the original text. He chopped the brilliant phrases of Evola, oversimplified and flattened them, totally neglected few hundred references and quotations. This translation is a crime against one of the best books on hermeticism in XX century.

Every book of Julius Evola shows rigour, preciseness and a rare intellectual honesty, but this one is simply amazing. He manages to distill the core teaching of hundreds of hermetics and alchemy classics and present it as a coherent synthesis that still allows you to easily follow any of his threads.

"The hermetic tradition" builds in the reader the skill to interpret those classics, but it is also a self-standing work. After a first reduction of the material, Evola refused to cut it further because he didn't want it to become a general divulgation for the common reader, and felt it was also necessary to offer a serious basis for the practical application.


The exposition starts with a widely found myth, that of the divine tree. The tree represents the key to the mysterious energy of the universe, conquering which a man dethrones the old gods and succeeds them. A well known example of a 'failed' attempt is of course the one found in the genesis.

This image can be interpreted in two different ways, depending on one's "spiritual caste". The attitude of a decadent priestly caste, Evola says, takes one to see the try as a sin in itself, while a traditional sense of the sacred (the one he links to kings and warriors) would rather consider the outcome of this try. In other words the only 'sin' of Adam is that he had not enough luck and strength to support his audacity.

Thus, alchemy is presented as the heroic quest whose purpose is to succeed in the goal where Adam fails. Out of the metaphor, that means freeing our awareness from the limits of a brain and body-bound consciousness while still keeping its individualization. In order to reach that goal we must work with the forces that constitute our nature and consciousness, learn to isolate, prepare, separate, and reintegrate them.

Since these principles and these operations are described in the alchemic literature under the metaphor of chemical operations on metals (both because of the rule of silence and for the need of a specific language apt to describe the components of our being) the book proceeds to explain this symbolism, giving us the key to the study and the understanding of every other work on alchemy.

This isn't an easy task, because there can not be an exact mapping of this language. Many different metaphors are used to refer to the same idea, and, at the same time, one symbol can assume different or even opposite meanings depending on the context. To overcome this difficulty Evola chooses, rather than to just give a synthetic, dictionary-like description of every symbol, to analyze it in an organic way and to show how it is to be found in different myths and in different hermetic studies, so that one can eventually internalize the concept and recognize it in different forms. Of course, to obtain the best result from such a proceeding, it would be better to read the book at least two times.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in alchemy and in initiation.

I was disapointed when I started reading this book and soon realized that it was nothing more then "Spiritual Alchemy". After reading the reviews here I assumed it had a more practical and physical approach but Evola simply dismisses ALL physical alchemy and alchemists in this text, claiming it was ALL "spiritual" and all alchemists were working internally rather than externally. I feel he does a bad job at proving this as well. Having read over 500 alchemical texts myself, I can clearly state that Evola obviously has not used all of his resources and interprets alchemy with his own personal bias(Theosophical Society). I doubt very likely that Evola or Jung every practiced a day of physical alchemy in their lives therefore making their interpretation quite useless since they do not understand the main concept behind alchemy in the first place which is clear in physical alchemy. While I recognize the fact that he states he is speaking about Heremticism(which is nothing more than a cult following of Hermes, a suposide Egyptian alchemist whos teachings can be confused for Spiritual), I am disapointed at the fact that he takes it purely as spiritual and nothing else. Chinese alchemy even clearly seperates physical alchemy from internal alchemy. Which is actually one source of Alchemy that Evola barely touches in his work. Its usually always Hindu alchemy(as to his Theosophic bias).

The chapters are very short, and its a good thing they are because more than 2 pages he completely veers off topic and chases fanciful leads from mythology or whatever that have very little to do with what he is speaking about or the topic of the chapter leading to complete confusion. There are probably more NOTES at the bottom of the page in this book than his actual writing. Although I found those more helpful than his writing! He cites his OWN books which I think is purely egocentric which really turned me off of reading this book even more. He does this atleast once every two chapters. Why an author would need to cite himself is beyond me though, which further pushes my belief to the fact that he added the citations for his own personal ego satisfaction and possibily to further the selling of his other books as well.

You can clearly see his theosophist bias in much of this as he jumps all over to every culture in an attempt to prove his points. How a man could have written 3/4ths a book on "Astral projection" under the guise of steps of alchemy is beyond me but thats what the majority of the book consists of. If he would have just used the term "astral projection" his book would be missing 100 pages. While some points caught my eye I was overall not impressed and he did little to describe actual "symbols" of alchemy except of course those that he made agree with his ideas of spiritual alchemy. So I give this warning to all of those seeking to purchase this book:

1)It is NOT a book for those seeking practical/physical alchemical techniques. Not even a description of physical symbols of alchemy.

2)If you are looking for the description of Spiritual Alchemy, with sources to new age ideas(originating from Theosophists) then this is book for you. Evola doesnt state "Astral projection" but it is very clear this is exactly what he is speaking about throughout the majority of the book.

3)Spiritual Alchemy or not, this book is far over-valued, in price AND in praise and I recommend picking it up from a used bookstore or if there are cheap used copies avalible here if you are still dying to read it after this review. Check your public library as well first. Its not worth the investment.

I hope this review has helped some of you make up your mind about buying this. As I said previously, I bought this book under the idea that it was in someway helpful because of the positive 5 star reviews here. I painfully read through the entire thing. Dont fall into the same trap if you are like me! This book is clearly SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY with a theosophic twist.