Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul [Hardcover]

Julius Evola (Author), Joscelyn Godwin (Translator), Constance Fontana (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: September 8, 2003

Julius Evola’s final major work, which examines the prototype of the human being who can give absolute meaning to his or her life in a world of dissolution

• Presents a powerful criticism of the idols, structures, theories, and illusions of our modern age

• Reveals how to transform destructive processes into inner liberation

The organizations and institutions that, in a traditional civilization and society, would have allowed an individual to realize himself completely, to defend the principal values he recognizes as his own, and to structure his life in a clear and unambiguous way, no longer exist in the contemporary world. Everything that has come to predominate in the modern world is the direct antithesis of the world of Tradition, in which a society is ruled by principles that transcend the merely human and transitory.

Ride the Tiger presents an implacable criticism of the idols, structures, theories, and illusions of our dissolute age examined in the light of the inner teachings of indestructible Tradition. Evola identifies the type of human capable of “riding the tiger,” who may transform destructive processes into inner liberation. He offers hope for those who wish to reembrace Tradition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Evola is one of the most interesting minds of the [world] war generation.” (Mircea Eliade, author of The Sacred and the Profane)

"One of the most difficult and ambiguous figures in modern esotericism." (Richard Smoley, in Parabola)

"Evola looks beyond man-made systems to the eternal principles in creation and human society. The truth, as he sees it, is so totally at odds with the present way of thinking that is shocks the modern mind." (John Mitchell, author of The New View Over Atlantis)

"It is one of Evola's greatest merits that he combines a prodigious wealth of erudite detail with the gift of isolating from their local conditioning ideas or disciplines that are of value to us." (Marguerite Yourcenar, author of Memoirs of Hadrian)

"Evola rises above the usual dichotomies of left and right, liberal and conservative, challenging us to reconnect our lives and our institutions to the timeless spiritual standard that guided our ancestors." (Glenn A. Magee, author of Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition)

"Ride the Tiger offers a practical view of how to be truly awakened in a dark age." (Robert Burns, New Dawn, Sept-Oct 2005)

". . . this is an important work for an intellectual history of the twentieth century. . ." (The Journal of Esoterica, July 2006)

“A dazzling and interesting, but very dangerous author . . .” (Hermann Hesse, author of Siddhartha)

"Simply put, Evola shows, unintentionally but with passion, why European Tradition may not be able to match East Asia in riding the tiger in today's world. It lacks a spirituality for today's mundane world, tempered by the harsh realism of Daoism and the practical disciplines of Confucianism." (Reg Little, New Dawn, No. 121, Jul/Aug 2010)

From the Back Cover

WESTERN SPIRITUALITY / HERMETICISM

“It is one of Evola's greatest merits that he combines a prodigious wealth of erudite detail with the gift of isolating from their local conditioning ideas or disciplines that are of value to us.”
--Marguerite Yourcenar, author of Memoirs of Hadrian

“Evola rises above the usual dichotomies of left and right, liberal and conservative, challenging us to reconnect our lives and our institutions to the timeless spiritual standard that guided our ancestors.”
--Glenn A. Magee, author of Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition

The organizations and institutions that, in a traditional civilization and society, would have allowed an individual to realize himself completely, to defend the principal values he recognizes as his own, and to structure his life in a clear and unambiguous way, no longer exist in the contemporary world. Everything that has come to predominate in the modern world is the direct antithesis of the world of Tradition, in which a society is ruled by principles that transcend the merely human and transitory.

Ride the Tiger presents an implacable criticism of the idols, structures, theories, and illusions of our dissolute age examined in the light of the inner teachings of indestructible Tradition. Evola identifies the type of human capable of “riding the tiger”--an individual who may transform destructive processes into inner liberation--and, in so doing, offers hope for those who wish to reembrace Tradition.

JULIUS EVOLA (1898-1974) was one of the leading authorities on the world’s esoteric traditions and wrote extensively on ancient traditions and hermeticism. Among his other works published by Inner Traditions are Men Among the Ruins, Introduction to Magic, The Mystery of the Grail, The Hermetic Tradition, and Eros and the Mysteries of Love.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Inner Traditions; 1 edition (September 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892811250
• ISBN-13: 978-0892811250
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Metaphysics

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 97 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Radical Right Critique of Contemporary Culture November 10, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Julius Evola wrote this book (in the 1950's) for people like himself (although younger and less experienced): marginalized radical-right intellectuals (with a strong spiritual bent) trying to maintain their dignity in a world where they exert little to no influence over their contemporaries, which he refers to throughout the book as the "differentiated" and "integrated" type of man--the "aristocrats of the soul" referred to in the subtitle. Topics of his critique range from (to name a few) nihilism, youth sub-cultures, existentialism, science, the arts, sexuality, and death. Evola's basic premise is that Western civilization is disintegrating and beyond the point of saving (or being worth saving), and so it is the task of the individual who is disgusted by his surroundings to make the best of the situation by "riding the tiger"--a non-resisting controlled indulgence--for the time being, and yet not falling prey to the delusions offered by the surrounding world.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Riding the Tiger - Aristocratic Tradition Against Modernity. October 3, 2004

By New Age of Barbarism

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

_Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul_ by Italian counter-revolutionary theorist Baron Julius Evola is a manual for a certain spiritual type of man - the man of Tradition - faced with the nihilistic reality of the modern world. Tradition is characterized by a recognition of transcendence and hierarchy as opposed to the mass levelling which has taken place in modernity - at root in nihilism. Evola, a gloomy figure on the marginalized radical right in postwar Italy, writes of the modern world as witnessing a new dark age, the Kali Yuga of Indian tradition (as noted by the father of Traditionalism, Rene Guenon). In the philosophy of Traditionalism, the world is said to have fallen from a past Golden Age (as witnessed to by the ancient Greeks, Hesiod, and the Hindus) and approaching the end of a cycle has entered the Kali Yuga, an era characterized by dissolution. Kali is a dark goddess of sexuality and orgiastic rites in Hindu mythology - said to be asleep in previous eras but in the Kali Yuga said to be wide awake. The modern age is characterized by the "death of God" (the end of the transcendent), the beginning of European nihilism as explained by Nietzsche. In such a world, the spiritual type Evola writes for is totally alienated. Topics covered in this book include Nietzsche's philosophy and the world in which "God is dead", the "lost youth" and the postwar generation of Beatniks, the dead end of existentialist philosophies, Heideggerianism and Husserlian phenomenologies, the new physics and scientism, moral decline, an excursus on drugs, the failure of modern art, sexuality and marriage, the "new religiosity, and death. Evola finds little to recommend for his ideal type except for a sort of neo-Gnostic complete withdrawal from the modern world characterized by what he terms "apolitea". In terms of Tradition, little remains left to recognize and hierarchy has been completely abolished. This form of apolitea may be described as "riding the tiger", a Far Eastern saying meaning that if one succeeds in riding a tiger not only does one avoid having to leap on one, but one may eventually get the better of it. This is Evola's only recommendation for coming to terms with modernity and making one's way across the Kali Yuga that completes the traditional cycle. As in his previous book _Revolt Against the Modern World_, Evola offers many profound insights into both the nature of modernity and the means for achieving counter-revolution giving the prevailing winds of the time.

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your father's 'Fascism' March 24, 2007

By James J. Omeara

Format:Hardcover

There's little point in reviewing this, or any book, by Evola, as they are pretty well self-recommending to the `differentiated individual' [the man who stands out from the crowd] that he is concerned with. If you don't fall into that rarefied class, then this book is not for you, and if that sound like 'elitism', then so be it; facts are facts, and this book would not please you anyway.

That said, even some who might be expected to welcome this translation of a relatively recent [Evola in the 70s!] work might not be pleased either. This book represents an even greater movement away from practical politics (his famous post-war `apoliteia' which some seem to think makes him "the godfather of neo-Nazi terror") than the previous Men among the Ruins. And Evola continues to take his own stands, regardless of what professors or publicists may think as "of the Right." Enthusiasts for the "French New Right" or the "Conservative Revolution" may be nonplussed to find their hero Heidegger beaten soundly in the chapter on Existentialism [which can even be recommended to the non-differentiated soul who wants a relatively short analysis and dismissal of that tiresome movement], while Sartre, that dirty French commie, gets some qualified praise for his views on freedom.

On the other hand, the relatively illiterate American `conservatives' who know nothing of Heidegger but worry about eugenics and `the white race dying out' would do well to contemplate Evola's views on marriage and reproduction. No great race, he points out, has conquered and ruled through force of numbers, but only by the will of its elites (the British Raj, for example). In the present situation, to demand more births is necessarily to demand that the numerically superior lower classes increase, while the elite themselves cannot count on their own children, born into this dark age, acquiring any distinction. Evola endorses the Platonic and Hermetic preference for passing traditional wisdom from master to disciple, rather than indiscriminate population growth, to preserve Aryan culture.

The chapter on drugs will also upset such conservatives; reading between the lines, Evola clearly supports his own earlier experimentation with mind-altering chemicals, and continues to find their use of value (again, only to the differentiated man, not the aimless hippie or teen subject to `peer pressure.') In this he continues to stand with the true Conservative Revolutionaries, such as Junger and Benn, libertines all, and disdains our current crop of thoroughly judaized "conservatives."

While not exactly a call to arms, this book will comfort the 'spiritual aristocrat' and provoke the intellectually lazy "man of the right." It may even delight a few liberals -- welcome to the fold!