Nietzsche and spirituality

[Anonymous No.18315766]

I like how Nietzsche says one's own will is the most important thing and that life should be affirmed, but I also believe in idealism and in continued experience after death.
Can you recommend me books that could either bridge those two things together, or rid me of my cognitive dissonance?

[Anonymous No.18316013]

Bump

[Anonymous No.18316015]

>>18315766
Start with the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.18316021]

>>18315766
Neitsche was a literal faggot idk why you all gloss over this

[Anonymous No.18316043]

>>18316015
I did

[Anonymous No.18316078]

>>18315766

[Anonymous No.18316098]

>>18316078
What were Evola's metaphysical beliefs?

[Anonymous No.18316110]

>>18315766
jung maybe? he studied neechee and i believe he thought the unconscious endured death in some way

[Anonymous No.18316135]

>>18315766
they are just opposite to each others. nietzsche's philosophy itself is a strain against spiritualism, since spiritualism is a negation of life.

[Anonymous No.18316147]

>>18315766
> that pic
relgionfags are so gullible. all it takes is a cheap red filter in photoshop to make them have a mystical crisis. they really don't know what mystery is.

[Anonymous No.18316206]

>>18316147
What the fuck are you talking about

[Anonymous No.18316216]

>>18316098
You may also enjoy Metaphysics of War. My Nietzsche obsessed buddy who ran into the same problems as OP told me after reading that that Evola addressed all his issues with N.
Anyway it's too much of an open ended question and would require an essay, if you narrow it down I can get into it some more. Basically the metaphysical beliefs of the ancient Indo-Europeans.

[Anonymous No.18316248]

>>18316216
Sounds like that's what I'm looking for, thank you
>if you narrow it down I can get into it some more.
Wasn't the transmigration of souls the core belief of many indo-european mythologies? Does Evola provide a "model" so to speak that details a specific cosmology and phenomenology, or does he leave things open-ended and up to interpretation?

[Anonymous No.18316256]

>>18316110
Doesn't Jung dismiss everything spiritual as an expression of the unconscious? It's my understanding that he sums up spirituality as a symbolic expression of unconscious processes but maybe I'm wrong, I've only read his introductory book

[Anonymous No.18316272]

>>18315766
Evola is Nietzsche + Guenon

[Anonymous No.18316325]

>>18316248
>transmigration of souls
Not in the same sense as in Buddhism if that's what you meant. But in some ways yes, although it's somewhat nuanced. Evola (and Guenon who he takes these ideas from, this >>18316272 is crude but accurate) definitely believes in a journey of the soul after death, but not literal reincarnation.
>Does Evola provide a "model" so to speak that details a specific cosmology and phenomenology, or does he leave things open-ended and up to interpretation?
No it's pretty well specified, although he often refers to the underlying principles to get to the core, so he can refer to Greek, Germanic, Catholic and Islamic ideas to point to the same universal principle.
His metaphysical ideas are described in detail in Revolt Against the Modern World which is excellent but the least Nietzschean if you will. It has to do with hierarchy, sacrality, kingship, male/female etc.
You could take a look at this series, the aesthetics are a bit cringy but the information is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD5B8P2wUbA

[Anonymous No.18316364]

>>18316325
>a journey of the soul after death, but not literal reincarnation.
Is it closer to what Plato said in Phaedo about the soul being weighed down by its attachment to the world once the body dies, or something else entirely?
>excellent but he least Nietzschean
That's fine, is there anything else I should read aside from Revolt, Riding the Tiger and Metaphysics of War?
I'll watch the videos as a primer, thanks.

[Anonymous No.18316402]

>>18316364
Metaphysics of sex is his best work

[Anonymous No.18316404]

>>18316364
>Is it closer to what Plato said in Phaedo about the soul being weighed down by its attachment to the world once the body dies, or something else entirely?
I guess you could see it in a Platonic way. I'm not sure I can do it justice but very crudely what he says is that the mass of souls after death return to the formless but those that have been initiated (twice-born) in life move on to a higher plane of existance and therefore retain some part of their individuality (but not personality).
>That's fine, is there anything else I should read aside from Revolt, Riding the Tiger and Metaphysics of War?
He has written nothing bad but those are the most important. I usually don't recommend Ride the Tiger at first since it's pretty dense but since you're familiar with Nietzsche you'll probably do fine.
Mystery of the Grail is my personal favourite, he uses the pre-Christian elements of the Grail legends to show the possibilites for heroic quest and initiatic experience.
Guenon's Crisis of the Modern World is also a good introduction but overlaps with Evola's Revolt to a reasonable degree.

[Anonymous No.18316412]

>>18316404
>those that have been initiated (twice-born)
Evola was an advocate for self-initiation, wasn't he?
>individuality (but not personality)
I'm not sure I'm getting the nuance.

[Anonymous No.18316415]

>>18316325
Evola makes a distinction between immortality (achieved only by extreme self-strength, and "transcendence" at an existential level), and retraction into the primordial kernel (a daemonic [not in the Christian sense, that is without necessarily "evil" connotations] substratum). This distinction actually aligns somewhat neatly with the Buddhist's assertion that there is no self (at least for the majority), because the human self is utterly dissolved upon death and the forces which composed your earthly existence recede from their conglomeration into their more unified substrata. Evola just takes it a step further by affirming that it is not this simple, and, for example, the Buddha was not merely dissolved into his Samsaric composites upon physical death, because there is more to it than this. Buddhists will additionally assert that, in their doctrine of conditioned genesis, even though conscious continuity is valid (if only hypothetically), upon death every meaningful part of your current selfhood is destroyed, and then a new composite is constructed.

With respect to Buddhism, I'll give one example from the Digha Nikaya which you can find in all the major translations, from Samannaphala Sutta. This isn't to suggest that Evola built his entire thought from Buddhism, he didn't, but that it does seem to at least align well with much from the ancient texts.

>"And he, with mind concentrated ... having gained imperturability, applies and directs his mind to the production of a mind-made body. And out of this body he produces another body, having a form, mind-made, complete in all its limbs and faculties." (85. Digha)

>"It is just as if a man were to pull a sword from its scabbard. He might think, "this is the sword, this is the scabbard. Sword and scabbard are different. Now the sword has been drawn from the scabbard." In the same way a monk with mind-concentrated ... directs his mind to the production of a mind-made body. He draws that body out of this body, having form, mind-made, complete with all its limbs and faculties. This is a fruit of the homeless life more excellent and perfect than the former ones." (86. Digha)

>"And he with mind-concentrated ... applies and directs his mind to the various supernormal powers ..." etc. (87. Digha)

[Anonymous No.18316421]

>>18315766
>will is the most important thing and that life should be affirmed
>idealism and in continued experience after death
>bridge those two things together
Unironically Catholic theology, Christian existentialism, and more recent takes on Thomism.

[Anonymous No.18316462]

>>18316415
Excellent clarification, thanks.
>>18316412
>Evola was an advocate for self-initiation, wasn't he?
No he was an advocate for traditional initiation but because we live in the Kali-Yuga the possibilities for that are greatly diminished, therefore for some self-initiation is the only available path but is very hard since it cannot be willed and comes with certain risks. Guenon disagreed with him on this issue by the way and was staunchly anti-self-initiation, advocating to search for a traditional initiaton only.
>I'm not sure I'm getting the nuance.
See this post >>18316415

[Anonymous No.18316479]

>>18316404
>He has written nothing bad
I like Evola but he sounded almost senile in some of the essays he put in Bow and the Club.

[Anonymous No.18316496]

>>18316462
>it cannot be willed
You mean it is accidental?

[Anonymous No.18316503]

>>18316462
Did the traditionalists have an opinion on shamanism?

[Anonymous No.18316528]

>>18316496
Hmm somewhere in between. So you can make sure the external factors are as conducive as possible to such an event taking place and thereby increasing the chance of it happening, but it's no guarantee. Not all are meant to go that route, so it's not like trying harder or practicing more will inevitably get you there.
>>18316503
Yes they varied. I think Evola and Guenon saw modern shamanism as a degenerated form, but that it derived from an authentic form of tradition originally. I know Schuon was more positive towards shamanism, especially Amerindian. Eliade (who is not a strict traditionalist but adjacent) has written a good book on it (Shamanism).
>>18316479
I really enjoyed that book. What do you mean?

[Anonymous No.18316555]

>>18316528
>I really enjoyed that book. What do you mean?
I recall some real "old man" moments when he was speaking about youths or something to do with modern youth culture.

[Anonymous No.18316564]

>>18316528
>Not all are meant to go that route
Isn't it the only possible route to take for someone who doesn't find what he's looking for within established traditions?

[Anonymous No.18316577]

>>18316528
He also gave a /pol/-style rant about how America will soon be majority black which also made me chuckle

[Anonymous No.18316578]

>>18316021
Kohler was a retard and so are you.

[Anonymous No.18316613]

>>18316555
>>18316577
I mean he wasn't wrong, at least culturally
>>18316564
No, Traditionalism is anti-egaliterian. Guenon and Evola believe in spiritual "castes" so in traditional society the priests, nobility/warriors, merchants/craftsmen, and labourers. Only those of the first three can be initiated, the last cannot. Since the castes have been mingled in modern times it's not easy to see who belongs where. So if you belong spiritually to the lowest caste, you're in tough luck. In that case adhering to a traditional doctrine is your only option, as in India the lowest caste have their own rituals etc. If you lead a spiritually consistent life you can still be initiated to some degree after death if you weren't in life but that's murky territory for obvious reasons.

[Anonymous No.18316628]

>>18315766
Nietzsche's philosophy is relativistic. It's just a very wordy and convoluted way of saying "might makes right"

[Anonymous No.18316643]

>>18316613
>In that case adhering to a traditional doctrine is your only option
That's assuming I'm indeed in a spiritually low caste. Which might be the case but isn't certain.

[Anonymous No.18316663]

>>18316643
Yeah let's be honest probably not if you're even interested in these things, but I thought I'd mention it nonetheless.
Still self-initation is not something you can unlock by yourself alone, the circumstances have to be right. For some it takes years, for others it happens without them knowing what has happened.

[Anonymous No.18316698]

>>18316663
>probably not if you're even interested in these things
Have any of the Traditionalists devised some kind of cursory guide or method at least that could help a person determine where they belong? I assume that the specific tenets of initiation differ depending on the spiritual caste, at least it makes sense on an intuitive level that a vaishya would not perceive spiritual matters in the same way as a brahmin and similarly for a kshatriya and that their respective paths would therefore differ.

[Anonymous No.18316730]

>>18316698
>Have any of the Traditionalists devised some kind of cursory guide or method at least that could help a person determine where they belong?
No not that I'm aware of, I think it's mostly an intuitive thing, for example Guenon being a brahmin and Evola kshatriya.
>I assume that the specific tenets of initiation differ depending on the spiritual caste
In traditional initiation yes but with self-initiation not really, which is one of the reasons Guenon opposed it.
There's a distinction between the Lesser and Greater mysteries (kshatriya and brahmin respectively) that can only be accessed after being "reborn" but I'm not sure how that works in relation to self-initation or if those are even possible in that case.

[Anonymous No.18316766]

>>18316730
>it's mostly an intuitive thing
Have there been vaishya among them or were all of the Traditionalists either brahmin or kshatriya? I have a very basic idea of how Guenon and Evola differ in the way they see things and it'd be interesting to see a third point of view.
>that can only be accessed after being "reborn" but I'm not sure how that works in relation to self-initation
You'd just have to assume you're on the right path, I suppose. Either way I don't think there are a lot of legitimate esoteric orders left in which one could feasibly become initiated.

[Anonymous No.18316806]

>>18316766
>Have there been vaishya among them
No not that I know of, I don't think they have the tendency to be writers (even Evola is the odd man out there). Traditionally Freemasonry (operative, before it was corrupted) was an order that produced such people. But we all know the current state of that.
>Either way I don't think there are a lot of legitimate esoteric orders left in which one could feasibly become initiated.
No, only some sufi orders (the path Guenon took) and some eastern ones that are very hard to get into as a foreigner.

[Anonymous No.18316831]

>>18316806
>I don't think they have the tendency to be writers
I see. The concept of spiritual castes is quite interesting, do you know in which books Evola and Guenon talk about it in length?
>No
Then in light of the fact that all available options are suboptimal, tracing your own path does not seem so unreasonable, as dangerous as it may be.

[Anonymous No.18316898]

>>18316831
Evola writes about it extensively in Revolt Against the Modern World but also touches upon it on other books such as Metaphysics of War and his books on eastern traditions.
As for Guenon he also mentions it in many of his books, especially Crisis of the Modern World, and Reign of Quantity, and Perspectives on Initiation.

[Anonymous No.18316911]

>>18316898
Alright, thanks again.

[Anonymous No.18316912]

>>18316831
>Then in light of the fact that all available options are suboptimal, tracing your own path does not seem so unreasonable, as dangerous as it may be.
And yes I think Evola was correct, especially given the current social circumstances. We can't all run off to Egypt or India.

[Anonymous No.18316922]

>>18316911
No worries, I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.18316956]

>>18316912
>run off to Egypt
I wish I could, they have a great aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.18318109]

>>18315766
Maybe look into Klossowski, Bataille and Deleuze?

[Anonymous No.18318870]

>>18318109
>Bataille
Isn't this guy a porn author?

[Anonymous No.18318947]

>>18315766
Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling. Problema 1.

[Anonymous No.18319211]

>>18316021
trivial fact

[Anonymous No.18320717]

>>18316135
Isn't the belief in an afterlife (at least an afterlife of a certain kind) perfectly life affirming? It's literally the belief that not even death conquers the spirit, that it is eternal. If we're in a state of intellectual and spiritual freedom why will a view of existence which is so emaciated as to propose that all things are reducible to what is apparent to the 5 senses? Shouldn't imagination and faith be let loose? We can apply no poetic lens to our interpretation of the facts of experience? Never read Nietzsche in my life, just curious.

[Anonymous No.18321085]

>>18320717
The Abrahamic belief in an afterlife tends to revaluate everything in life so that it is measured according to one's successful trip to said afterlife. What you end up valuing is the afterlife, not life. Everything in life becomes part of the ritual that the afterlife has said up for you. Life isn't enjoyed for what it is, and this is indicated by the nature of Abrahamicists' glorification of good and condemnation of evil.

[Anonymous No.18322125]

>>18321085
The new agers unironically solve this by treating life as a game or dream

[Anonymous No.18322221]

>>18320717
Look up "the eternal recurrence".

[Anonymous No.18322612]

>>18315766
Check out Evolas Overcoming the Superman and Jungers On Pain.
Both synthesise ideas from nietzsche in a traditional context

[Anonymous No.18322940]

>>18322125
The "new agers" aren't exactly Abrahamicists and they still measure the value of life according to things outside of this life.

[Anonymous No.18323391]

>>18321085
This seems like a bit of a caricature of "Abrahamic" belief. I can only speak for Christian views here, but the best theologians view past, present, future, and eternity as part of one poetic whole, with the present not being seen only as a place to remedy one's individual standing before God and receive a promise of eternal destiny with him, but as a perfect stanza in God's grand poetic narrative, valuable both in itself and in relation to the whole drama of existence. Grace allows one to perceive the beauty of the moment and the aesthetic unity of the whole. Christ lived and died in this world, in this Age, and has freed us to live vigorously in it through the Cross, the climax of everything.

[Anonymous No.18323914]

>>18323391
If Abrahamicists really embraced life, they wouldn't embrace a gospel that condemns aspects of life that cause their immortal souls to stray from the secure passage towards their afterlife as "evil" and seek to reduce it wherever possible. Abrahamic morality favors mediocrity with its "evil" being an arbitrary moralization of a necessary constituent of life devised due to the Abrahamist notion of the afterlife coupled with their notion of the immortal soul. There's little to argue about this, it's just how the Abrahamic moral-ontological model works.

[Anonymous No.18323960]

>>18323914
The Christian understanding is not that one does good and hates evil because one is endeavoring to secure their eternal salvation. It's not some cynical moral-financial exchange. Christ has made complete satisfaction to the Father for the unquantifiable sin of man. We are forgiven freely on account of his boundless merit. The doing of good deeds is motivated by a love of God, and a desire to do his will because it is beautiful. The harmony of neighbor, neighbor, and God, the consent of being to being and the ground of being, is the poetry of eternity. Good works are a free outworking of love and gratitude on the part of the believer. Saints are not mediocre. Living and dying passionately for the sake of a romantic vision of all existence is not mediocre. What is excellence to you? The acquisition of empty power for it's own sake directed towards no proper ends?

[Anonymous No.18323971]

>>18323960
There is no need for the word "evil" at all if you embrace life. Instead, what you embrace is an ideal.

[Anonymous No.18323975]

>>18323971
Evil is the negation of the ideal, not an existing substance.

[Anonymous No.18323977]

>>18323975
Right, and the ideal =/= life. You embrace an ideal, not life. Abrahamic religions are not life-affirming.

[Anonymous No.18323992]

>>18323977
The ideal is life perfected and perfecting, not something abstracted from it. Even evil as a phenomena is good when viewed from the perspective of the unity of history. There is no ultimate rejection of how things are now, only an anticipation of more direct, clear perception of the beauty of all.

[Anonymous No.18323997]

>>18316078
This.

[Anonymous No.18324006]

>>18323992
"Life perfected" is not life, but someone's ideal being called life.

Life is that thing which goes on despite what we dream, that does not care whether we are in pleasure or pain, does not care about justice, does not care about salvation, does not care about guilt, does not care about good or evil, and does not even care about its own perpetuation. Anyone concerned about such things is not concerned with life, but instead with an ideal, a mere dream that life will eventually wake you from.

[Anonymous No.18324034]

>>18324006
What you call a "dream" I call faith, hope, and love. You willfully choose to reduce all existence to what is immediately present to the senses, the mere facts of experience. Worse actually, what you do is choose to read the facts of experience through an arbitrary lens of total pessimism. You will chaos. You choose it. Grace opens the mind and recontextualizes the facts of experience as both beautiful in themselves and an integral part of the drama of history considered universally. There is nothing about life that somehow in itself compels me to disbelieve the Gospel.

[Anonymous No.18324063]

>>18324034
>You willfully choose to reduce all existence to what is immediately present to the senses
No I don't. The senses are idealists in their own way.

>You will chaos.
"Chaos" is just another brand of "evil" for a certain aspect of life. What you call "chaos" is that aspect of life that makes you feel weak in some way.

[Anonymous No.18324076]

>>18324063
You view the world as uncaring and chaotic for no reason. Chaos is in the mind, not in the world. The world is ordered poetically by God, in the Christian view. There is no event in life which causes me to 'feel weak' in itself. Events would only have such an effect on me if I viewed them through a certain pessimistic interpretive framework.

[Anonymous No.18324091]

>>18324076
>You view the world as uncaring and chaotic
You said I will chaos. The aspect of life I am defending appears chaotic to you, not to me. Life is not how we feel about it but that which goes on despite how we feel about it.

[Anonymous No.18324118]

>>18324091
I do not believe in the existence of what I am calling chaos in any sense whatsoever. The facts of experience do not appear to me do be disordered or random or uncaring, they are not unintentional. You seem to me to be insisting that there is something about the present facts of experience themselves, somehow pre-interpretive, that compels one to disbelieve the Gospel and affirm that there is no inherent structuring of things, only successions of somehow arbitrary events.

[Anonymous No.18324152]

>>18324118
>I do not believe in the existence of what I am calling chaos in any sense whatsoever.
Of course you don't, you're an Abrahamicist. Why would you believe in anything outside your ideal and your God? Why would you willingly permit such a thing to exist? Your God exists to serve your kind and your kind alone. Truth isn't of any interest to you and you've redefined what is true to solely what your God condones. Truth can't be dirty or "evil" to you because that would sully your ideal and your God.

[Anonymous No.18324166]

>>18324152
I am not rejecting anything that self evidently exists. This uncaring world is one of your own creation. You adopt a certain interpretive framework which to my mind is radically grim and pessimistic for no reason whatsoever. You are willing an emaciated view of the world, rather than the Christian view which is of continuous aesthetic enjoyment of reality and rejoicing in the glory of God and his creation.

[Anonymous No.18324190]

>>18324166
>This uncaring world is one of your own creation.
Life is not uncaring, but it is indifferent to our demands.

[Anonymous No.18324249]

>>18324190
There is a very real sense in which the world is what we make of it. Interpretation is everything. I am glad that by grace I am drawn to the world of joy and poetry that is the Christian faith.

[Anonymous No.18324263]

>>18324249
Ideals are part of life. I'm not denying ideals. But life does not end where our ideals end.

[Anonymous No.18324289]

>>18324263
Sure. I don't deny the present facts of experience. I cannot make myself a millionaire by fiat. But what they *mean* is not somehow mechanically determined by the fact of their presence to me. Disorder, disunity, indifference, these do not belong to the text of existence itself but to the minds of individual readers. I affirm life in this Age. I affirm it as a beautiful, structured narrative, wonderful considered both individually and in relation to what came before and what will come after.

[Anonymous No.18325021]

>>18315766
Unironically
Read about the Indo-Europeans culture and religion
Like Beowulf and the Poetic Eddas
and pic related