EVOLA, JULIUS. Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (Julius; 1898–1974) was a cultural, religious-historical, philosophical, esoteric, and political author. Evola was born in Rome, most likely to Sicilian aristocracy, and was raised Catholic. He came under the early spiritual influence of Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Carlo Michelstaedter (1887–1910), and Otto Weininger (1880–1903). After returning from service in Word War I, Evola experienced an existential crisis, which almost ended in suicide. According to his own statement, he was rescued by a sentence from the Buddhist Pali canon. Psychological experiments under the influence of ether led Evola to a transcendental experience of his self (Ego), which transformed him completely. He experienced his self as all-comprising and identical with the highest spiritual power in the universe. During this time he became friends with the futurist Giovanni Papini (1881–1956), who interested Evola in the Eastern wisdom teachings and the mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), whose extreme clarity...