The Magic of the Image: Operative Symbolism in the Evolian Tradition

1. The Magic of the Image: Operative Symbolism in the Evolian Tradition Title: The Magic of the Image: Operative Symbolism in the Evolian Tradition Tags: #Evola #Magic #Hermeticism #Traditionalism #Initiation 1. Image as Direct Action – The magus does not "think" but acts through images, which instantly shape reality. Ordinary consciousness perceives only shadows; true magic operates at the speed beyond physical latency. 2. Timeless Speed – Sluggish modern awareness lags behind phenomena, registering only their residues. The initiate must awaken to the rapidity of pre-physical causation, where image and act are one (imago = imo ago: "I act from the depths"). 3. Descent into the Heart – Liberation from cerebral limitation requires a shift to the "heart" as the hermetic center (anahata). This aligns with the alchemical antelope—symbol of swift, subtle mastery over the volatile. 4. Image as Ritual Weapon – Passions and external influences are immobilized by fixation into images (e.g., rotting corpses for disgust, arrows for focus). The mental act, when crystallized, extrudes into material ritual. 5. Fluid Mercury to Solar Fixation – Emotions are mercurial; the magus coagulates them into images, then ignifies them through will. This mirrors the Caduceus process: dissolution, coagulation, and transmutation. 6. Theurgical Invocation – Deific attributes are not contemplated but dynamically actualized through sequential image-transformations, inducing exalted states for sympatheia with higher forces. 1/7

2. 7. Dominion Over Thought-Forms – Thoughts and feelings are tangible, malleable entities. The adept handles them as objects— projecting, dissolving, or restructuring their signatures. 8. Archetypal Leverage – Invented images lack the potency of those rooted in traditional symbology (e.g., solar ascent vs. lunar decline). Real "signs" anchor the imagination to cosmic forces. 9. Directive Glance of the Magus – At mastery, the initiate perceives emotions as plastic figures, altering them in others via willed image- projection or command. 10. Breaking Nature’s Spell – Nature is crystallized desire, the fall of intellect into mechanistic yearning. The magus halts this precipitation, confronting reality as a field of images to be commanded—not suffered. The Magic of the Image In the awakened being, the mind ceases to be mere "thought"—it becomes pure act, shaping reality instantaneously through images. The magus wields these images to create, destroy, and transmute inner sensations into matter; through them, he commands his own organism and exerts influence over others. Where ordinary men rely on brute will and material action, the initiate substitutes the sovereign power of the image. Yet to achieve this, one must awaken to timeless speed—a state where perception, conception, and intervention occur with instantaneous precision. The sluggish, sleepwalking consciousness of the common man perceives only the residue of phenomena, the shadows of actions already completed. It knows the world as acknowledgment, not as magical act. 2/7

3. What you call the "inner world" is still external—lunar, passive. You experience images as mere reflections, not as living forces. You do not act through them because their movement is too swift for your dulled awareness. The true image (imago) is imo ago—"I act from the depths." To grasp this, the mind must liberate itself from the brain’s constraints, descending into the "heart," the subtle center where the volatile and the swift reside. This is the alchemical "bath" that shatters the chains of leaden consciousness, releasing the winged, hermetic force symbolized by the antelope—the heart’s swift essence. Here, reality is no longer spatial or temporal but rhythmic—a dynamic field where image and act are one. The magus is "reborn backward," no longer hypnotized by phenomena. He perceives their prenatural birth, intervening before they solidify into matter. In the magical image, there is no effort, no interval between will and fulfillment. It is pure act: to see is to act; ideation is realization. Its law is IT IS—the command-presence. The Practice of Image-Magic When desire, fear, or anger arise, fix them in an image—then act upon it. Transform lust into a rotting corpse and cast it away; turn pain into a snowflake melting on white-hot metal; dissolve anxiety into smoke scattered by the mind’s fire. The mind must grip these images like a fist clutching a struggling animal, or an arrow striking its mark. To free the mind, invoke the open sky, the stillness of a windless flame, or the ocean unmoved by flowing rivers. These are not metaphors but operative symbols, gateways to the subtle. Theurgy and the Mastery of Forces 3/7

4. In theurgical rites, images of deities must be actualized—felt as living presences within the fluid body. The mind shifts between them, exalting itself until sympathy with the invoked power is achieved. One potent image is that of the dark body consumed, replaced by a radiant form of light—a flash glimpsed in mortal danger, or in the moment between waking and sleep. Another is the skeleton of lightning, a sigil of invincibility against hostile forces. Persist in these exercises, and you will come to see thoughts and feelings as tangible forms—objects to be seized, reshaped, or discarded. Their shapes derive from the signatures of their source. Invented images may serve, but the most potent are those that mirror the true forms of the states they represent. The Magus as Sovereign of Images Having extinguished craving and aversion, the magus perceives feelings as figures—shapes to be altered with a glance. He can evoke an emotion, saturate it with his will, and project it into another’s heart. Even without full vision, he may work through analogical images, provided they are charged with sufficient force. At its zenith, the image resurrects even the dead world of nature—for nature is desire, the degradation of idea into blind mechanism. The magus, having slain desire within himself, halts this degeneration. He intercepts beings before they solidify into matter, confronting them as images to be mastered. His Yes transfigures dark forces into intellect; his No shatters the forms that sustain them. As he ascends from the "Waters," his perception refines. No longer 4/7

5. does he see reflected phenomena—he perceives the signs of kingdoms, stellar forces, the Twelve and the Seven. At the height of adeptship, nothing touches him directly. All must first appear as an image, demanding his acceptance or refusal. Even fatigue, sickness, and instinct arise as specters to be dominated. Only what he cannot master in thought may overpower him—but the initiate’s task is to transmute even this darkness into light. Metaphysical part: The Two Paths of Postmortem Existence Traditional teachings distinguish between true immortality—reserved for a spiritual elite—and mere survival, which applies to the majority. In antiquity, man was not seen as a simple duality of "soul and body" but as a composite of multiple principles: 1. The Ordinary Personality – The transient waking consciousness tied to biological life. 2. The "Demon" (Daimon) – The deeper, subpersonal life-force behind the individual, linked to ancestral bloodlines (the lares, manes, or genius in Roman tradition). This force persists after death but remains bound to nature. 3. The "Shadow" – A weakened residue of the personality that dissolves after a period (the "second death"), returning its vital elements to the collective stock. For most, death means disintegration—their essence reabsorbed into the ancestral totem, perpetuating the cycle of rebirth. This is the lunar path (pitṛ-yāna), associated with Hades, chthonic deities, and ephemeral existence. 5/7

6. The Solar Path: Heroic Immortality A higher destiny exists for those who conquer death through spiritual realization. The "heroes," demigods, and sacred kings of tradition achieved self-subsistent immortality—not as a disembodied soul but as an incorruptible body (sahu, "body of glory"). This was attained through: - Sacrificial Transformation – Imposing a transcendent principle upon the vital force (symbolized by the Vedic fire-rite and Egyptian rites for the ka). - Ritual Mastery – Theurgical practices that forge an immortal form, freeing the individual from the cycle of rebirth. This solar path (deva-yāna) leads to the "islands of the blessed," Valhalla, or the Olympian realm—beyond the "door of the sun." Unlike the fragmented masses, these beings retain unity: their "resurrected" bodies embody victory over dissolution. Traditional Cults and the War Against the Infernal Civilizations decline when lunar, chthonic cults (placating ancestral spirits, telluric forces) dominate over Uranian rites that direct man toward immortality. The aristocratic cult’s purpose was: - To sever dependency on the totemic-subpersonal. - To align individuals with Olympian influences, forging a destiny beyond Hades. Neglect of these rites condemns man to the "hell" of cyclical nature— symbolized in myths like the Danaïdes or Ocnus, futilely laboring in 6/7

7. the underworld. The resurrection of the flesh (in Christianity) and the Eleusinian crown of myrtle are faint echoes of this ancient doctrine: death as triumph, the dies natalis of the immortal. 7/7